Finance Sector Union assistant national secretary Nathan Rees told ifa that with many Australians facing unemployment and exploring the option of early super access, there had “never been a more important time for Australians to have access to quality, professional and ethical advice”.
As such, a key priority for the union, which had seen advice industry members grow as a result of an AIOFP campaign ahead of the 2019 election, was to ensure quality practitioners were not forced to leave the industry due to a lack of recognition of educational qualifications, Mr Rees said.
“We have been successful in pointing out necessary remedies for some of the FASEA structures, and we will continue to work with policy makers to these ends,” he said.
“Australia cannot afford a situation whereby ordinary Australians cannot access good advice because a poorly implemented policy has forced thousands of advisers to vacate the field. This is a textbook unintended consequence.”
Mr Rees said the FSU was also advocating better portability of qualifications across the myriad systems and designations available in the financial services industry, by way of a single body that assessed the suitability of educational offerings.
“The skills and experience of those that work in the sector are a national asset to be recognised, built on, and drawn upon,” he said.
“For this to work successfully, there needs to be a scheme of skills and experience accreditation that provides for portable qualifications recognised right across the sector.
“We want to see this scheme overseen by a tripartite government/industry/employee body that does periodic skills audits of the sector and the landscape ahead, in order to make sure that finance sector workers are well placed for the jobs of the future.”
In addition, Mr Rees said the union was supportive of government incentives to improve advice accessibility, which could potentially take the form of tax deductible advice fees.
“Australia’s superannuation is mandatory, and employees don’t have discretion over whether they’re in a scheme or not. Consequently, it follows that governments should make explicit provision for quality financial advice at that point in a worker’s life when they need to plan their future,” he said.
“Access to professional advice should be the right of every Australian, just like healthcare or education. A logical extension of this view is that there should be strong consideration by government to providing tax deductibility for the cost of advice, under appropriate regulation.”
This article tells me that the FSU don’t even understand the issues and have no chance of making any impact.
– The FASEA exam, extended or not, will have smashed a big percentage of Advisers long before the qualifications requirements (which is years away). Current estimates are for 1/3 of Advisers to go.
– Soon the credentials of the majority of Advisers will be higher than those who manage them – AFSL Heads, RMs, PDMs, Compliance people and other useless Dealer Group staff. When unlicensed people get to tell licensed people how to interpret and apply the law, we’re in a big mess. That’s the real issue at the moment and everyone is missing it.
Could not agree with you more on the 2nd point. I am glad there is someone else out there who gets it.
Well said
Absolutely spot on!
Well – this has shone the light on one of the fundamental structural inefficiencies in the advice industry – and that is the role of Dealer Groups. They are, in general, a nefarious influence on the provision of independent, unconflicted, useful advice to clients.
I like the cut of Nathans jib here, I have never heard the afa or fpa use such forceful language, advice is a right and so forth. This is what we need people working on changes and clearly defined goals that us planners want to achieve , not just sitting in the corner waiting for the fasea and asic baseball bat. If the fsu can be recognised as a professional organisation, bye bye to the others. I may just join anyway to give them more strength, why not my other membership fees get wasted anyway, tpb for example . This one bites not like our other lilylivered lap dogs .
Nathan’s own Post under a pseudonym
“We want to see this scheme overseen by a tripartite government/industry/employee body”
LOL, that’s FASEA’s job isn’t it? Way to go as an endorsement!
And Nathan Rees, that’s the ex NSW Labour State Premier isn’t it.?
What a joke the FPA is turning out to be. If FPA members actually had to pay the $1,000 a year out of their own pocket and not via some spreadsheet from their Bank employer the FPA would be dead.
Perhaps your article should have been written 5 years ago?
I hold bachelor of business degree, master of professional accounting degree, master of financial planning degree, CFP, CPA and I’m a GAICD.
When I showed these qualifications to FASEA – they said the Ethics courses I have already completed were not up to FASEA standard?
I have since enrolled and completed via Kaplan – FPC002B Ethics and Professionalism in Financial Advice.
I also passed the FASEA exam last year. Glad to have it behind me. The only real positive is that no further study is required from FASEA as i already went through the pain of the master of FP.
My qualifications did not also meet the current TPB educational requirements under 301? Can you believe that? I got in under 304.
No use in whining and complaining…no one cares or listens anyway…Our (Financial Services) industry is such that if you want to be a part of it then you will need to be prepared to study for life and do CPD for life. Not necessarily a bad thing for a knowledge worker to have to do to remain professional.
Under RG105 (option 6) – it will be interesting when ASIC decides to enforce and make law (not just on number of years in the game) that ALL RMs, directors and executive mangers of AFSLs must be equally as qualified as the financial advisers they are accountable to lead. Enforce this requirement on leaders and the financial services industry will actually move ahead very quickly. Attitude and behaviour reflect leadership.
Seriously get over it and get on with fulfilling the education requirements as per the new legislation. If an adviser can’t commit to the new requirements then leave the industry. I’m an adviser that had the old grad dip DFP so needed to do 6 units plus FASEA. I’m powering through it and will be done by mid next year. No excuses for any delays imo, just means poor advisers will be sticking around for longer.
You have an “old Grad Dip of a DFP”? R U sure you’re not Sam Henderson? Hoping when you’ve spent the time doing the actual course you’ll have a greater respect for post nominals.
if the likes of FPA – AFA are toothless and have not done anything to instill value to advisers maybe all advisers join a real UNION and abandon the make believe ones
If we all joined the UNION we would actually be able to get traction. Nathan has done a great Job speaking on behalf of the advisers.
Why not allow advice fees to be tax deductible
We subsidise all other industries .ie education, medical and drug industries as just a few we can recall.