Aged care advice doesn’t need licensing

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) needs to monitor aged care advice but it does not need to be specifically licenced under ASIC unlike superannuation or life insurance advice, according to the Financial Planning Association (FPA).

FPA head of policy and government relations, Ben Marshan said that while he believed differently last year, where he had suggested that the government could introduce legislation requiring aged care advice to be regulated by the corporate regulator in the same way as financial product advice, he had now tempered his position.

“I don’t necessarily think it needs a specific licensing condition and as far as professional financial planners go and the services they’re providing I’ve got no concerns in that area at present but I think it’s something that the regulator and other professionals need to just keep an eye on to make sure that that remains the case,” he said.

“Aged care advice is very broad so I don’t think you can necessarily narrow it down to ‘I go to ASIC and get a single licensing condition on my AFSL [Australian financial services licence] to provide aged care advice’.”

Because aged care advice would include a combination of different areas such as superannuation, investments, holistic advice, insurance products, estate planning, and social security, it would not be conducive for aged care advice to have a specific, narrow licensing condition, Marshan added.

The FPA planned to develop and release a new 10-point plan at the FPA Congress later this year, and licensing conditions around aged care, among other areas, would be addressed in the document.

However, Marshan said the FPA had not yet formed a position on the issue.