The new rules around conflicted remuneration, fee disclosure and fiduciary duty – announced by current Treasurer and former financial services minister Chris Bowen in 2010 following the Ripoll inquiry – will take effect from today, with several key reform items still seemingly unclear.
Association of Financial Advisers chief executive Brad Fox told ifa on Friday that his organisation was throwing its support behind the call for a 12-month reprieve, since further guidance is required before the changes are fully practicable.
“We think some form of extension is necessary and the reason is that there are so many things still unknown,” Mr Fox said.
“The context is that government, ASIC, Treasury and the industry have all underestimated the challenge to be ready by Monday.
“It’s not through lack of resources at industry level – we still don’t have grandfathering regulations or corporate super guidance; this is a sector of the industry that has had the door shut.”
Shadow minister for financial services Mathias Cormann also lent his support for the last-minute postponement push, as reported by ifa sister title InvestorDaily on Thursday.
“The implementation of FOFA and Stronger Super clearly should be extended by 12 months,” Senator Cormann said.
“It is highly undesirable to have large numbers of financial services providers forced into a situation where they have no chance but to be non-compliant.”
Offering a global perspective, Gillian Cardy, managing director of the IFA Centre, a UK trade association for independent financial advisers told ifa that Australian advisers have little choice but to get on with it now that FOFA is a reality.
“What is absolutely obvious from everything that has happened here is that a lot of advisers simply didn’t leave enough time,” she said. “If you need to develop a new value proposition, that could take a year or more, so please don’t leave it to the last minute.”
ive heard that about isn pension phase and they are talking about a smsf service.
maybe they need a few blow ups to prove no ones perfect, who knows ?
ive heard of some really bad cases of insurance claimes not paid
Best thing you can do if it is in the Clients best interest is move as much in funds away from ISN and show clients what real service is !!
4 months for an ISN fund to process and set up a clients account based pension what a disgrace
didnt think we would have much help from a communist government
Well I haven’t even looked at the FDS letter in detail even though I believe all systems are go. It’s four pages, and that’s the short form version. I’m a small practise…pretty much have been told I need to merge or get bigger quickly.
This is clearly best for the ISN. Sorry I meant for the working public.
Imagine if you were a doctor and arriving at work today and a patient presented that need a life saving operation, do you let him die or save him, knowing that the rules you operate under were not crystal clear and you might be non complaint if you saved his life. ANSWER is let him die… just post date all your advice for another week might be best. Where is that listed in my study books?