policy

Emission impossible
Given the supposed urgency of the Government's advice reform package – described as "vital" nearly a year ago by Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones – you'd be forgiven for thinking the industry might make a showing in the 2024 Budget. Alas: nothing. Across the four Budget papers, comprising 999 pages (I counted), financial…
A qualified endorsement of qualified advice
Could the “qualified adviser” classification – or whatever it ends up being called – actually end up becoming an asset for advice businesses? While the Government proposed the QA concept as a means for financial institutions (particularly super funds) to provide simple, low-cost advice to their customers, FAAA CEO Sarah…
Advice is at the precipice – saving it means putting consumers first
The Australian ﬁnancial services sector has reached the precipice and desperately needs a different way of thinking if it is to have a viable future at all. Advice is now only affordable to a small minority of Australians and retail advice is not scalable in the current regulatory environment. The industry must face…
What does ASIC Report 779 mean for advice?
The focus on superannuation fund performance has ramped up over the last few years. Following a recommendation from the Productivity Commission, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Your Future, Your Super) Bill 2021 introduced the performance test regime. This was initially applied to MySuper products from July 2021, but it was…
CSLR and the cost of Dixon Advisory
This week has seen a big focus on the CSLR, and particularly the cost to the financial advice profession - $18.6m in 2024/25. The underlying story is the issue of the Dixon Advisory business. At last count, there were 1,948 Dixon Advisory complaints sitting with AFCA. To put this into perspective, AFCA received just 600…
When the levy breaks
It took nearly three years and two governments, but the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) is ready to launch on April 2nd – and, most pertinent to this discussion, industry funding for the scheme will commence on July 1st. Ahead of its launch, the CSLR has released estimates of the amounts leviable to the different…
FAAA on QAR/super incentives
In a recent submission, the FAAA criticised the lack of "specific encouragement provided for people to seek external professional advice that is not tied to a single product solution" in the Government's post-QAR roadmap. Obviously, the "product solution" being referred to there is super funds. This is a broader issue than…
The five-year anniversary of the Royal Commission
As we approach the five-year anniversary of the release of the Hayne Royal Commission final report, it will be a time to reflect on the impact of the Royal Commission and the lasting consequences for the financial advice profession. No doubt we can all recall the particularly uncomfortable media coverage of Commissioner…
QAR and peace
Spare a thought for the Australian Law Reform Commission. Over the past four years, the shape of Australian financial services has stretched and skewed to accommodate significant changes including the economic fallout of COVID-19, the arrival of a new Government and, more recently, the Quality of Advice Review. Reforms,…
Your 2024 priorities
I don't know about you, but I've never been one for new years' resolutions. Time marches on without any regard for the promises you make to yourself on Dec 31st. That being said, there are already a number of important items on the 2024 financial advice calendar and I'm curious as to which of them you think will have the…
Who proactively asks their software stack providers about security?
The results are in from ASIC's Cyber Pulse Survey, and the report has been released (12th November 2023). So much to unpack! One of the points they make is around supply chain risk. Without looking at the survey, I'm interested to know your thoughts on the percentage of advice firms that have already asked their software…
What's in a name?
Would an adviser by any other name be just as qualified? The Government's long-awaited response to the Quality of Advice Review (and the feedback it's received) highlights one of the more enduring problems in financial services regulation: naming and terminology. After all, if the proposed new class of advice providers –…
Why the QAR response feels like a win
Earlier today, I was able to represent Iress in Canberra and attend an announcement at Parliament House, where Minister Stephen Jones released the Government’s final response to the Quality of Advice Review. I’ve been involved in the Review in one way or another over the past few years, and learned that the political…
QAR: does the first tranche cut it?
One notable omission from Treasury's draft QAR legislation is optional SOAs, which were originally going to be part of the first "stream" of reforms when the Government first responded to the review back in June. What do you think of the plan as it currently stands? The changes to fee consent, FSGs and advice in super are…
QAR ends not with a bang but a whimper
After laying out its "roadmap for financial advice reform" back in June, the Government has finally released draft legislation giving effect to the recommendations made by Michelle Levy in the Quality of Advice review. Well – some of them, anyway. The first tranche of reforms (broadly) adopts four of Levy's 13…
What has been holding up the adviser registration process?
Part of the Hayne Royal Commission recommendations was to add a new registration process for advisers. You might wonder why, given that we already had a Financial Adviser Register. Well this registration obligation contains more, including a fit and proper declaration. The primary hold up was a legislative change that the…
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Will QAR go far enough?
A two part question for all our Advisely Experts and Board Members - with Minister Jones handing down the first part of the draft QAR legislation this week, do you think he'll go far enough to make a material impact for most advisers? And secondly, what's the one thing you think must get through? @Tangelo @Peter.Worn…
Bureaucracy is ripping the heart and soul out of advice
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely While that certainly came to pass, neither she nor anyone else could have predicted one of the main reasons why. COVID threw into stark relief the true extent of many Australians’ financial precarity, which prompted around 2.6…
Putting the cart before the horse
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely The AFA believe many requirements under current financial advice legislation, including annual renewal and the use of financial services guides, as “additional layers of bureaucracy [introduced] with little consideration of the…
The legacy of the Storm collapse
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely. The ALRC’s background paper, Risk and reform in Australian financial services law, addresses the ways in which financial services legislation has failed to adapt to “changes in regulatory philosophies.” This failure, the paper…
The good, the bad and the banks
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely It’s no surprise, then, that simplification appears to be the overarching objective of Quality of Advice reviewer Michelle Levy’s paper. And many of the recommendations contained therein, such as scrapping SOA and ROA requirements…
“Good advice” and the spectre of vertical integration
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely If you’ll excuse the unintentional rhyme, that sentence more or less encapsulates one of the most pertinent concerns about the overhauled regulatory model for financial advice laid out in Michelle Levy’s Quality of Advice proposals…
Why you can’t let regulation run your business
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely In her 35 years as an adviser, 26 of which have been spent as principal of Integra Financial Services, she’s always tried to anticipate what’s coming next – whether that’s a big piece of legislation, the new standard business model…
Will advice recover from the post-FASEA exodus?
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely Having worked in finance and financial planning for over 30 years, the Story Wealth Management CEO has borne witness to multiple periods of upheaval in the advice industry – and, like her fellow travellers, has had to learn and…
The impossible standard
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely Not long ago, we discussed Michelle Levy’s Quality of Advice review proposals paper and one of the most significant ideas therein – effectively scrapping the best interests duty and replacing it with an overarching obligation to…
Self interest versus best interest
This article has been taken from the NMP education library which has now moved to Advisely The report contains 13 primary recommendations. These include an expansion of the definition of personal advice – it would cover any financial product advice given on a personal basis by a provider who has information about a…

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