The incoming standards recognise a bachelor’s degree in accounting as related education, but those accountants with postgraduate qualifications will still likely be required to complete bridging courses by 2024.
Accounting bodies like Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ), which runs the popular CA Program for postgraduate studies, are in talks with FASEA at the moment about recognising accountants’ “significant” training compared with planners in its new guidelines.
“Generally speaking, accountants who have operated in this area have done it for a long time. Those people with 20-plus years’ experience should be recognised as having different credentials to someone that has just got a degree and RG146,” said CA ANZ senior policy adviser Bronny Speed.
“Surely those years and those extras equate to something.”
FASEA also makes no distinction between the mandated education minimums for accountants operating under a limited versus a full AFSL. This means accountants providing basic SMSF advice will, as it stands, have to meet the same requirements as an accountant or financial planner offering holistic advice.
Licensing consultants like Jeremy Danon, director at Ariel and Associates, think this line of thinking is out of step with how accountants approach and provide SMSF advice in particular.
“I believe that it is important to distinguish between those ‘financial advisers’ operating under a limited AFSL,” Mr Danon said.
“Recommending and organising the creation of an SMSF is part of an accountant’s duties and responsibilities in regard to the financial health and wellbeing of a client. It is the accountant who recommends whether a client’s business or activities would operate best under a trust, SMSF, company or sole trader structure.
“For something that was traditionally their domain, accountants are being lumped with all other financial planners with no exemption or grandfathering relief.”
All you planners bleating about accountants having to do the ‘education’ please be a bit careful otherwise accountants might question your taxation credentials and request the TPB ensure that you have degree qualifications in Taxation, rather than the current all being registered with the TPB without the qualifications. Disclosure I am an Accountant, Tax Agent and also aurthorised representative with the ‘education lot’ and no fries.
So all we need now is the insto execs who have caused most of the industry scandals to be appropriately degree qualified and FASEA’s work is done? Oh wait no they will get away with it again.
Did the accounting expert actually say that “recommending an SMSF” is part of an “accountants duties”?
Did he also say that accountants “recommend whether a client’s business activities would operate best under an SMSF?”
When it comes to superannuation, better education and enforcement of the existing laws are long overdue for accountants.
I am an adviser of 17 years, with 18 years banking, Assoc Diploma in Accounting, Associate Diploma in Banking and Finance, Diploma of Management, Self Managed Superannuation Course and Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning. My ongoing CPE hours have been in excess of 45 hours per annum (Not triennium), excluding reading hours, investment & insurance provider meetings. I have seen accountants and planners come along with their respective “Degrees” where they are of no use for first 6 months and have had to start them with basic admin work before progressing to paraplanning and advising. Yes I now have to go back and complete a Graduate Diploma. At the same time produce sufficient income to cover staff wages, find time from my family to study and extra expense to cover the education costs.
Unfortunately courses and diploma’s (unless graduate) just dont cut the mustard if we want to be a profession. CPE/CPD is also pretty worthless, its not a test of knowledge.
We’ve had it too good for too long and need to accept it.
Did you know that “Qualified Accountant” is a term enshrined/protected in law (Corps Act). However when you investigate the requirements, it is possible to find a path to satisfy the requirements while not holding a single accounting qualification (not even a diploma). Yes, it is possible because that is what I did.
I meet the Corps Act requirements to be able to call myself a “Qualified Accountant” yet I don’t hold a single Accounting qualification. Not complaining though 🙂
these associations have so many loopholes.
they sign MRA’s and allow back door entry into their association people who might not have had the same quality education as that in australia and or no knowledge of Australian company and taxation law
all for the sake of revenue and then point fingers at others take the log out of your own eye first pals
No amount of study and no amount of courses will change the FACT that financial planning is a sales industry. Financial planners MUST sell, sell sell to survive and in most cases you will sell services or products (use to be products alone) that are just not need by many clients. Most clients on a regular fee for service regime are getting absolutely screwed and ripped off. Because it isn’t commission it’s Aok and not a dirty practice in the industry’s eyes. When you add up your monthly fee or quarterly invoice and measure what the actual service or benefit is to the client MOST and I do mean MOST mums, dads and families are getting taken advantage of.
The financial planning industry is a joke. It will never be accepted as an honest industry by those who understand what’s happening to these poor clueless victims planners call there clients.
You can bang on all you like about the great advice given or tax saved. It’s all the more reason you should be charging for the advice only and not this BS service rubbish which you all know is not needed in most cases.
You need to sack your FPA. Detach from this ridiculous circus or 50 page soa’s and just charge for you advice and implement fee only. If your client really needs the service you will have them back for reviews when needed. WHEN THEY NEED IT not you.
Steven. WRONG on some many counts. planning is all about strategies, real planners offer solutions and get paid for for doing so as well as guidance through clients life journey. Companies that have (yuk ) sales targets are from a bygone era. If you want to use the term then it equally applies to every single person engaged with the public. grow up or grow a brain cell.
The banks have destroyed financial planning.
Let me guess? A disgruntled accountant who is no longer able to legally sell SMSF products to consumers who don’t need one. Will you roll your clients over to a more appropriate super fund when Bill Shorten scraps franking credits on SMSF pensions? Or will you drop the limited licence and live on the trail of your ill-gotten SMSF service book. Not to mention all those clients who are being over-serviced with unnecessary trusts and company structures. Get your own house in order before criticising other professions you don’t understand.
Steven, how many clients would accountants have if it wasnt for a mandated flow of business into your door? If lodging tax returns & BAS statements wasnt necessary, how many people would seek out your services?
No matter what business you are in, you have to sell your services. We’ve switched our services to an annual subscription model and the fees turn off automatically after 12 months. At that time we have no problem getting clients to renew their subscriptions, and they actively refer their friends and families. So we must be doing something right.
Like many accountants, you can obviously only see the cost of something and the value of nothing.
Thats it , i am changing professional associations . The CPA is arguing in favour of its members for its members. ( Or lets have some sanity and let advisers with 10 years experience and a DFP or CFP be accepted now with an ethics course and Life writers the same )
CPA Australia??? You must be joking. Havent you seen the abysmal performance they have given in corporate governance, accountability & openness to their members. Apart from the horrendous fees the board gave themselves and the self-promoting ex-CEO, they have splurged millions of members money in pursuit of an AFSL that nobody wants.
right. cpa australia is imploding and members are scattering everywhere so they are a no go zone
However when it comes to FASEA they are doing a very good job for their members. Every Financial Planner with a related degree in finance owes a thank you to them. They’re the ONLY association that has come out publicly and questioned FASEA. Unlike the FPA whose silence has been purchased via their evil puppet masters the Banks.
Its very serious if the government stops people working. Its arrogant for the politicians and bureaucrats to close a business simply because complaints from the public are a nuisance. That is what it amounts to. The press and the public complain so the politicians have to “do something” or at least look like they will do something soon. The politicians can pretend for a while that they understand the problem. Then they move on to opposition or a different portfolio before everyone can see they do not understand the problem. The woman in charge today insists that education is the solution to the problem. By the time the journalists admit she was wrong she will be gone. Too late for for the people who have lost their business and income for years.
Accountants have been moaning for years about advisers not being qualified enough , now the shoe is on the other foot, they’re having a whinge !!
Good to see an association sticking up for its mbrs and questioning fasea
Direct translation – Why should we have to abide by planners rules if we want to be planners?
Seriously, get a grip. If I want to be an accountant I need to do the required study, two way street.
@ reality, agreed, accountants wouldn’t even let you enter their profession without a specific degree in accounting, in some instances you might be able to gain entry into their professional program (if you have experience)
but to become qualified you must have an accounting qualification, AND at a post graduate level i.e. AQF 8 or higher
if you want to be a planner [b]we also require[/b] you to have a post graduate degree in the core knowledge areas of financial planning
if you don’t have a post graduate degree in financial planning, you are welcome to join BUT you need to get a post graduate degree in financial planning to practice
it doesn’t matter what your association says or how extensive or experienced you are
we are having to do the same
thank you
papa
papa, so why not submit on a joint basis- more weight to the submissions. Ethics- WOW, between the accounts ethics, planner ethics and TPB ethics courses, one must wonder what the “” new “” ethics course can offer.
No thanks, i am not interested in doing anything with accountants, as far as i am concerned they are on their own. good luck.
after years of telling us we are not qualified enough, they can figure it on their own
mate the joint accounting bodies, formed to represent the 3 x legally recognized accounting associations in Australian legislation cannot even get it together – the last time they met was in 2012 – to submit something on a joint basis for their own profession
you expect them to be proactive and do something with another emerging profession that is their rival
c’mon NO!
The irony is both the CPA and CA offer a specialist credential, FPS [b]AND Guess what is required[/b]:
1. more than 50% work in financial planning
2. recognized tertiary education in [b]financial planning [/b]
3. authorized rep of AFSL or AR status
so, we agree, to be a specialist financial planner you have to have a tertiary degree specific to financial planning
OTHERWISE
your association would not be offering it as a specialty designation nor requiring education or experience specific to it
thank you
Papa
papa point 2 as you state it is incorrect, accounting degree and their version of RG 146 at present- basically a 4 unit hit. FACT
that’s even worse then
Accountants welcome to “planet” FASEA! A cosmic galaxy ruled by Deen Sanders. Where nothing makes much sense at all!
Wrong, a world ruled by politicians. Sanders & FASEA board have been given the rules by govt and are just implementing whats in front of them as best they can.
Excuse me! FASEA was provided with a simple mandate to bring all advisers up to a minimum degree standard. I have a Masters Degree in Financial Planning from a top university, I achieved almost straight High Distinctions and graduated less than 9 years ago; yet they are planning to send me back to university for 360 hours at a cost of $6-9K. To suggest they are ‘just implementing whats in front of them’ is ridiculous.
The real costs is the 3 x uni course costs of say $15K plus the scary cost is the time lost redoing the same education = 360 hrs at say $300/hr = $108,000
[b]So FASEA education for already well educated advisers will cost approx $120K each adviser [/b]
Odwyer and Sander’s where is the Ethics in that ?
Suck Eggs LOL, the amount of tax effective duds, the property commissions and the inappropriate SMSF set ups…. that accountants have done… they are not exempt
Jimmy,
Please stop whinging
You need to actually remember who was providing illegal tax advice for a great many years, if you have forgotten, may I please remind you. It was the financial advisers. Every financial plan was based around teh tax laws for which most financial advisers were not qualified to provide as they did not have the required tax knowledge.
Both sides can work together but you need to be more tolerant
Peter,
The ‘tax advice’ that most planners would include in their SOAs would be something like “if you sell your BHP shares for more than you paid, it’s likely you will pay some tax” or “your income protection premiums are usually tax-deductible” or “you may be able to reduce your personal tax bill by salary sacrificing into super” all said with a recommendation to confirm these things with their tax agent or accountant. Even now with TPB registration for financial planners, all this does is confirm the above given that considerations of tax impacts is actually in the Corps Act that governs our advice. We cant act for clients with the ATO, we cant lodge tax returns or BAS’s.
I guess when you’re an accountant providing advice every tax bill looks like a problem looking for a solution, which is why most people sold ‘tax-effective’ investments in trees, almonds, sandalwood, etc were done so on their accountants advice. 10% comms were lapped up by accountants masquerading as financial planners as they poured millions of clients money into tax things, generally all geared so that they could also get a tax deduction for the pre-paid interest. And when the proverbial hits the fan, the finger is pointed at ‘financial planners’ and we cop the hit from ASIC, the media, all quarters when in relaity it was the ‘trusted advisers’ selling their clients a lemon.
I’m all for working together Peter, but lets do it from a level playing field where all those licensed to give financial advice are appropriately qualified, with no exemptions or carve-outs. I cant go and operate as an accountant or full tax agent with ticking the appropriate boxes.
What is good for the goose!!!!!!
Plenty of us advisers with unrelated degrees such as Science majoring ion Mathematics, Actuarial studies, Advanced diplomas of Financial planning, 5 CFP units (10 years ago) and 25 year plus of Direct advice experience are getting no favours either and are beinbg far harder done by than accountant who have to do three units. Get with the program or get out of advice. I’m up for 8 units and will get almost no recognition of prior learning. If it means we clean up the industry then that’s what we need to do. Accountants should be required to do units on Superannuation and Insurance too to give SMSF advice so I’d shut up and be happy with the outcome. You got off lightly if this is where is ends up.
“Surely those years and those extras equate to something.” I could argue the same thing, I completed Bachelor of Commerce, the full original 8 unit Diploma of Financial Planning and more recently the advanced diploma of financial planning – along with ongoing structured CPD training every year for 17 years. However it is likely I will still be required to complete 3 additional units of study to continue to provide advice to clients. Why should Accountants be exempt?
Welcome to same idiocy that Risk Insurance Advisers are being subjected to with these ridiculous education requirements all you accountants out there that have earnt your stripes and represented your industry with distinction for the years you have. We feel the exact same rage you guys no doubt now feel.
The Federal Financial Services Minister and the industry body that’s putting these requirements together both have absolutely no comprehension of what the impact of these new requirements are going to be nor how unreasonable and illogical they are. Its also incredibly hypocritical. #DarkDaysAhead
Traditional and historical events are in the past. Accountants must also be up to speed in the advice arena. Rest assured there are many outside the accounting arena who have qualifications as good or better than accountants and who have also completed CPD and other qualifications. The message here is to join together for a better outcome overall, if there are groups claiming exemption–it won’t work.
The accountants that i used to work with loved recommending SMSFs to their clients as it added a minimum of $3000 pa to the accounting bill. And then they would request we planners simply advise.on putting the money into a platform to make things easy to manage and account for.
sending thoughts and prayers. They want to keep providing inappropriate SMSF set up advice for clients with $15k in super like the last couple I just saw who wanted a second opinion, they should have to deal with the same requirements we do
Report it to ASIC Mattie. There’s no other way these cowboys are going to be found out.
Again accountants thinking that they are more special than other people and stamping their feet, holding their breath and covering their ears until they get what they ‘deserve’