AIOFP moving to align with Finance Sector Union

The Finance Sector Union (FSU) is in negotiations with the Association of Independently-Owned Financial Planners (AIOFP) to appoint it as its preferred provider of financial planning services to its 60,000 members across Australia.

Preliminary negotiations have been concluded between the AIOFP and the FSU’s South Australia/Northern Territory branch, and the matter will now be referred to the FSU national executive for consideration.

An agreement, which is expected to be announced within months, will require AIOFP advisers to provide FSU members with advice on any redundancy packages as well as general financial advice.

Any agreement is conditional on AIOFP advisers who provide advice to FSU members becoming full financial members of the FSU.

Debbie Black, local executive secretary of the FSU’s South Australia/Northern Territory branch, confirmed the negotiations to appoint the AIOFP as its preferred provider of financial and redundancy services.

“We’re looking at entering into an arrangement with the AIOFP to provide a comprehensive range of services to our 60,000 members, conditional on participating AIOFP members becoming FSU members.

“The services we offer our members are usually delivered by people who understand the benefits of unionism and believe it is a worthwhile activity.”

Black said the “next step” would be to take the proposals from the negotiations with the AIOFP and raise these at a national level with the FSU executive.

“Our national FSU has been briefed initially on what’s been proposed in our discussions with the AIOFP but we still have to flesh out the finer details (including adviser fees).”

She emphasised that any agreement would cover all FSU members who are looking for financial advice in general in much the same way the FSU has preferred lawyers for its members.

“However, in the first instance, we’re hoping the AIOFP will help our retrenched members with their retrenchment packages to ensure their payout has been calculated correctly.”

AIOFP chief executive Peter Johnston said it made sense politically for AIOFP members to become members of the FSU, as their membership is with the major banks and life companies.

One common factor is that if an FSU member gets retrenched from a bank for example, the last place they want to leave their money is with that bank.

Instead they want to go elsewhere, and this is where our members as FSU members can offer an independent service to them, Johnston said.