In a statement, Cbus head of advice and retirement Greg Harper said the fund was “proud” of the referral program with the FPA and that it valued being able to provide members with access to advice.
“It’s important to us that our members can get advice they can trust, close to home, to help them make the right decisions for their personal circumstances no matter what stage of life they’re at,” he said.
“Our advice service is clearly valued by members with more than 96 per cent providing positive feedback. That satisfaction is reflective of the fact the service is designed for them with only their interests in mind. Cbus is proud of that.”
FPA chief executive Dante De Gori said the partnership was “delivering great value” for Cbus members.
“We’re extremely pleased that Cbus has entrusted CFP professionals in FPA professional practices to give financial advice to its members. These financial planners are totally aligned with the service criteria of the referral program,” he said.
“CFP professionals have been connected with thousands of Cbus members right across Australia in all states and territories, and have provided advice across the full spectrum of personal financial planning.”
With a third of the FPA’s income coming from the CFP program (and why would you study the CFP program when you now need to spend $10,000 on a Grad Diploma) the FPA is heading for some very very serious financial difficulties. No doubt some hard times ahead for the FPA. With ASIC, Treasury and now advisers burdened with red tape and all questioning the FPA relevance, the FPA will need to justify there existence. Not sure if this is the right way.
All aboard the Cfp Bus toot toot sell more courses…!
I wonder what would happen if an FPA adviser told a CBus member that their super fund was at risk of being declared non complying, due to CBus using members funds to invest in unionised job creation construction projects?
Our experience with the program is very different to that outlined, to the extent that the FPA needs to review their support of the referral program immediately.
There are a number of problems. Firstly, if you dare to arrange insurance outside of Cbus Super, in the clients best interests, be prepared for a whole bunch of questions from the Cbus trustee, And that leads to another issue – even if the client agrees with your advice and implements your recommendations, the Cbus trustee has the final say on whether or not you get paid. Place insurance outside of Cbus super and the chances are you won’t get paid, or certainly not the full amount clients have agreed to pay.
Given that, you might think you could place insurance outside of Cbus super and get paid from the product. Not so. All product commissions are banned.
What else – if a Cbus member wants a fee refunded, it will direct the FPA to seek reimbursement from their member. Who would have thought that the FPA would take instruction from a product manufacturer?
Seems like a great program – not in clients interests and you don’t get paid. Makes you wonder who would want to be a part of it…
Refer people based on a designation that costs a silly amount of money and isn’t going to be worth the paper it’s written on in 5 years time.
Good work!
Cbus and FPA Have all got it wrong. No matter how much or what type of advice you receive from these so called very highly qualified people ( at a high cost advice fee), at the end of the day the companies that make the actual investments have their own managers who do at times make bad decisions resulting in poor returns and who is to blame here. So all these big wheeling and dealing between Cbus & FPA is just another ploy to line up their own pockets and the clients are again the biggest losers.
CFP – a designation not recognized by FASEA. Not the highest recognized financial planning qualification in the world as stated by the FPA. CBus employees should go seek advice from higher qualified planners.
I have been a finance profession for 40 years and not degree qualified. Why would I worry about the latest craze dreamed up 5 minutes ago by FASEA . As per todays paper, 30% of degree graduates training aren’t useful for their employers… so what do we do ? Yes make them all have useless degrees dictated from FASEA and incur huge Hecs debts and keep Uni lecturers , tutors , academics and all the other hangers on , student uni fees etc in business . I have been involved in the CBUS programme which has been excellent for both reputable planners and super members. For your info , they seem to like CFP qualified planners in a professional practice as evidenced above.
This ‘latest craze’ will put you out of business, if you dont have Grad Dip FP. Cbus will clearly need to rethink their referral program.
One wonders how it could be so good given the restrictions outlined by the first respondent. How anyone can recommend insurance from any union super fund and satisfy their BID is beyond me. And it seems that if you do the best for the client you are penalised for it. Hopefully this sort of restrictive practice gets picked up in the upcoming Royal Commission. It wont get touched by ASIC because they give the big green tick to anything associated with union funds.
Never had any referrals from Cbus. Pretty poor sport old boy that you’ve got 40 years in the industry and in those entire 40 years you obtained no formal education.Disappointing that advisers who wanted the industry to be a profession in order to prevent over regulation and actually went out and did something, much like the existing adviser with an old Masters of Financial Planning is being punished. very odd.