Corey Wastle, the founder of independent financial advice business Verse Wealth, is “incredibly supportive” of the direction the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) has taken and believes that reviewer Michelle Levy is moving the needle from compliance-led to consumer-led advice.
Speaking to ifa on an upcoming podcast, Mr Wastle explained that Ms Levy’s perspective is “very pragmatic” and that in his opinion, she is treating financial advice as a profession rather than an industry.
“I think she is giving us a lot, if not all of what we’ve been saying we’ve wanted for a very long period of time — and I’m talking generalities here, people have different views. No proposals are going to be perfect by nature, but I think as a whole they are a radical improvement on what we have currently,” Mr Wastle said.
Reflecting on the current regulatory landscape, Mr Wastle said “it’s not working” for both the advisers and their clients.
“Even just speaking for ourselves I guess, we’ve got a good business, we’re growing at a good pace, we attract a lot of enquiries, 100 to 150 a month, people are reaching out and we have to turn so many people away. People that genuinely want advice, that want to pay your advice, and in short, the reality is that they might not have the resources, the income or the assets or the complexity or a combination of those to warrant our full financial planning service,” he said.
“So we need to respectfully redirect them and I think that’s a shame. And redirecting them is hard because it’s not necessarily a bunch of obvious places you can send them to, particularly younger people, or lower asset, lower-income type clients.”
Mr Wastle believes advice is currently reserved primarily for the wealthy or individuals on a clear trajectory to wealth.
“I think all of us collectively want advice to be more available. And that’s where Michelle is coming from,” Mr Wastle said.
He believes that professional advice firms like Verse need to acknowledge that “we’re not meant to be here to serve everyone”.
“Not everyone can afford to have a professional financial adviser in their life. I think we need to be able to offer advice in different ways, in lower-cost ways, in more innovative ways,” he said.
Ultimately, Mr Wastle is not opposed to super funds and banks re-entering advice, but believes the key lies in how that re-entry is managed.
“People talk about going back to the bad, old days, I started in what were the bad old days. I was at CBA at the tail end of their very well-documented bad period… And I just don’t think we can go back there. I think too much has changed. I think we have too many important professional pillars in place,” Mr Wastle said.
Addressing the adviser exodus, which has seen the industry count drop to below 16,000, Mr Wastle believes “the devil is in the detail”.
“I think a lot of those are people who don’t want to be in the future of advice. The future of advice is going to be different from the past. And I think that a lot of the advice industry has been trying to cling to the past, rather than try and lean into the future.
“I think if you don’t lean into the future, you’re going to lose out every time.”
To hear more from Mr Wastle tune into the podcast from Wednesday at 5pm.
If advisers were able to do a complete document and the correct research needed to back it up there would be no complaints on the current system. They just want to reduce their own cost and increase their own profit. Advisers won’t reduce fees, there is no benefit to the client
That sounds like all we do is give “product advice”… Advisers do far more than that. We’re required to do product research now and rely on independent third-party research houses for recommendations. Perhaps your comment should be directed to those failed product providers. Secondly, the business of providing advice is not that profitable. The salary difference between an admin person producing advice documents (called paraplanners) and the salary of an adviser that can go to jail for inappropriate advice is some $20K. Not much of an incentive there.
Until Australia totally ELIMINATES Annual Fee Consent Forms altogether (red tape that doesn’t exist in any other nation on earth), working families will remain locked out from accessing modest fee-level financial advice support services. This ridiculous red tape is an insult to their intelligence, as well as completely unnecessary, as proven overseas.
I too am an ex-bank adviser. I too agree that advice should be more accessible. Personally, I take far more satisfaction from improving the situation of someone with not much, to someone with lots. Banks providing advice again concerns me though. The ‘calibre’ of bank staff has huge variations from my experience. Providing limited advice on in house products is a car crash waiting to happen. I doubt the advice will be documented, so what redress will be available. I don’t think it is anywhere near as simple as Ms Levy believes. Interesting times ahead.
Or a petrol tanker heading into a bushfire…
“I think we have too many important professional pillars in place to go back to the bad old days”
Corey, so did you miss the bit about product providers being able to provide “advice”, that is nothing more than directing them into their own products…..and this advice doesn’t have to be in the clients best interest, this advice doesn’t need to be provided by someone who is qualified. Sure, can’t see how anything bad could come from this.
What we’ll end up is a dual operating system. You, buried in red tape and another adviser working in an Industry Super fund dishing it out in spades, the exact same advice with no regulation, and no obligations.
The only people this QAR is helping is Superannuation/conflicted advice get in the game and ruin it again for another Royal Commission.
Is this like a Doctor cherry-picking his clients and charging fees based on what they’re prepared to pay. Yes it’s a great time to be an Adviser but it’s not a great time to be an Australian looking for Advice. Allowing super funds to recruit used car salesmen to provide Advice with special carve outs may help reduce the number of those 150 inquiries for Mr Wastle, but it’s not going to help Australians.
The solution is to allow Mr Wastle (experienced, educated, qualified, skin in the game) to operate more efficiently by reducing his red tape, therefore increasing the number of clients, whilst keeping his working hours reasonable. When a Doctor chops off your legs does he spend more than 15 minutes in the consultation or provide you with a Statement of Advice, or alternative strategies? No.
100% old Bob. Last year I needed lots of Drs intervention. Not once did I get an SOA. I am still wondering why they charge so much as all i got out of it was a few scars. I want my SOA, or at teh very least a fee disclosure statement.
I dare Michele Levy to explain to us how commissions work in our industry and the quantum really required to assist the consumer and adviser. Will be interested to hear.