He is an Aussie - check your facts.

So cards on the table - we run a collegiate license where no third party shareholders need the AFSL to make a profit.
It meets its RG166 financial requirements and professional standards are provided by employed and outsourced resources with practices billed each month to cover the Licensee costs.
I don’t want any of you to join us so no axe to grind or conflict.
I look at this strategy and would argue it just means a lot of extra ‘consulting’ fees for the outsourcers out there, with no economies of scale. Driving fees back into every advice practice and having every practice provide tailored solutions is impractical and simply way to expensive.
The old world of dictatorial AFSL management teams promoting product through their advisers is gone but the legacy of FSR, FOFA, LIF, the RC and FASEA live on. There are so many traps for well-meaning but inexperienced advisers that you will be sitting ducks for AFCA and ASIC and no ASIC will not suddenly become facilitative.
Accountants do not have an aggressive regulator focused on everything they do and nor does the legal profession. Simple question, which govt body regulates them? ASIC looks at accountants in the advice segment but then it is professional bodies, the Law Council and some state regulators. We have a government behemoth whose is mandated to watch everything we do.
There is value in aggregation – not financially any more – but in services that can be agreed and imposed on an advice network. There is safety in numbers as colleagues can openly discuss the application of regs and principles and agree a way forward. There are economies of scale for clients when negotiating administrative and funds mgt discounts and lastly there is collegiate support that can help build best practice with the sharing of ideas.
The AFSL has or is changing but I think there is an argument that moving back into a market garden type structure will only make advice more expensive and probably lead to worse consumer outcomes.

Are you a child? Or just a gutless child? The guy has the courage to put his name to his well thought out views and your first instinct is to go the person? You epitomise everything that is wrong with the old conflicted problems in financial planning that is holding us back. Just retire and move on. Martha MacGoonigall? More like Gutless Spiv.

Look the AFA and AIOFP are 100% right. Accountants can do this sort of thing because they are smart people. Along with the AFA and the AIOFP, we all know that advisors just wouldn't be capable of doing it themselves, they need institutions to do it for them. It's just the FPA standing up for institutions again.

One of the most erudite pieces that I have read here. Well done "anonymous"!

They are one of the few in the industry that are a bigger joke than Dante.

Couldn't find an Aussie?

Exactly my point Accountants, Lawyers and Doctors all have PI yet they don’t need licensees.

Both these heads of AFA and AIOFP have vested interests with the licensees and large dealer groups they don’t represent the views of advisors, I am glad I am a member of the FPA, I would ask other advisers to contact these 2 other bodies if your members and tell them they don’t represent your views and if they don’t change their stance cancel your membership and move to the FPA

Who are these guys kidding the scale only benefits the licensee not the authorised representatives they have to deal with a large licensee who doesn’t care or listen to the authorised representatives needs and more importantly the clients.

Why is scale so important for a licensee because they can push the products they create into the APL and force their authorised representatives to only use those products because their supposed compliance teams see issues with other products please don’t BS me.

All these efficiencies and delivery benefits go towards the owners of licensees not authorised representatives and the clients if not then why has the cost of being an authorised representative being going up with larger licensees.

Can anyone please provide me with some logical points as to what the benefits of a large scale licensee has over a financial planners being individually registered, I can not see any.

If we abolish this need to be authorised under a license and move to individual registration I would be able to pass this cost savings on to my client and reduce fees by up to 40-50% but currently my licensee takes that for doing absolutely nothing they don’t know the client they don’t research and provide an SOA, all they do is come once a year pick through files and arbitrarily try and find compliance issues to justify their jobs, we have our own compliance managers so there is no need for this.

This is exactly what planners need with all this change something that will reduce costs and the unnecessary burdens licensees put on advisers so it is actually the perfect timing, the FPA has it right and these other bodies have it wrong and if they truly came from a advice background they would understand our needs but they don’t they are backed by the institutions and licensees hence why they are trying to protect them not advisers

Our Licensee is so useless and incompetent they have even tried to force us to sell clients investments when the market has been going down to reduce the risk to the licensee and then they tell us we should be buying when the market is going up, that is amateur investor behaviour how can I make money for my client if I buy at a high price and sell at a low price, honestly any amateur knows that is not the way you invest, clients come to us for professional investment advice.

Oh Tom, I actually thought those comments made sense and then..... I'm not the person who replied but, that website of yours is like a candy to anyone who disagrees with you. Be careful. Try speaking out against the FPA.... I dare you Mate and then you might appreciate why some prefer to remain unknown.

Not your mate

Brilliantly encapsulated!!

This is the future.
I have the required qualifications and i have passed an exam (FASEA?) i provide evidence to ASIC and they say i can provide advice.
I then join a body that holds me accountable to the code and is available for guidance. They report me to ASIC if they have concerns.
I then interview a compliance consultant and pay them on a fee for service basis for whatever help i need.
I interview CRM and software providers and buy the one i like
I interview research and pay the one i like.
I interview education providers and use the one i like.
I review product providers and place my clients with what is best for the client..etc etc. See the point. I can change any of these providers whenever is suitable without drastic changes to my business. It will mean all these providers will have to earn their money and provide value, otherwise i go somewhere else. I'm no longer trapped.
This model could actually reduce costs by thinning out dealer group and product provider support staff, many of them who make up numbers to take fees from our clients.
Many of the requirements we have are to stop selling in house conflicted products. If there are no in house products, and i'm selecting on merit, a lot of this 'patches' aren't needed. I can spend my time reviewing clients more often because the paperwork burden is reduced. (note i still have a best interest obligation. I don't want to get away from that)
Dealers and products will cry at this because it will increase competition for them and they will have to be relevant and value and can't just take money for nothing because they have the biggest network.
I already pay tens of thousands of dollars for those services listed. The price would probably come down if the providers had to be competitive.
Keep the exam date and study deadline as it is. Make all dealer groups complete a look back program and start the new system 1 Jan.
Make it happen.

Mate show some guts and quote your name

I became self licensed because I believe Advisers should be personally held accountable. I did not do it because it was easy or it was cheaper. I did it because I believe that 's what needed to be a Profession. With professionalism comes less Government intervention and affordable advice for all Australians. My compliance and processes are much better, I am more accountable, because like most self licensed advisers, I live in constant fear of ASIC. I am quite selective on the clients I provide advice for. It is for those reasons why I believe we'll still need institutional advice and self licensing is not for everyone. I've done my exam, I've completed a Masters, I treat my clients like family. I gain great pride in knowing I am doing everything I can possibly do to create a better industry for those that come after me.

I will not be renewing my membership of the FPA because the FPA puts the needs of the FPA first, not advisers or Australians and being a professional and being a member is impossible. I don't want them to be advocating for me and they're not the body to be driving this important issue

Mate show some guts and put your name to it. All this anonymous stuff is pathetic.

Agree, except for the stupid "shift the dial" drivel.

I agree this is poorly thought out by the FPA. Its just more straw clutching. Dante has lost all confidence as have the FPA and he needs to move aside.

“The FSC and its members want to help drive Australia’s long-term economic recovery,” Ms Loane said.
Have you seen how her LIF policy has decimated insurers profits, made millions of customers worse off having suffered premium increases and driven new business to an all time low and under-insurance to an all time high. I think its time government stopped listening to the dodgy FSC lobby group.

A new direction for the FPA can npt and will not be achieved with the same old leader of old policy - DANTE MUST GO.

Again, all of the objections to this idea are rooted in the assumption that we HAVE to have licensees. So it’s all about putting better lipstick on the same pig.

No.

Instead, the question should be “if we were to start again, how would it look?”

Would it be:

1) an expensive ‘middleman’ creating their own individual rules and guidelines that each differ from the legal obligation, while creaming out hundreds of millions dollars a year from advisers and clients or;

2) professional advisers individually licensed to operate within a clear regulatory framework with consistent rules and requirements?

The AFSL system is broken - let’s start again and make something that works for advisers and clients.

Not the snouts in the trough.

For once.