Don’t make competency framework too costly

The Association of Financial Advisers’ (AFA’s) whitepaper on the financial advice competency framework should not exploited for commercial gains and made overtly expensive, according to a financial group executive.

Madison Financial Group chief executive Annick Donat told the 2017 AFA National Adviser conference on the Gold Coast that while the research was substantial and important, it was important to avoid making it too onerous or expensive for commercial gains.

“The majority of this room with all due respect is small business owners, who pay our salaries: manufacturers, product providers, licensees, all of us. And in every conversation I’ve been having of late it’s occurred to me we seem to have forgotten that,” she said.

She added that the conversations she had been having with advisers indicated to her that while advisers helping clients, some of them would lose the love of advice if the research was too commercialised.

“Let’s not make it expensive and let’s do it in such a way that are running in parallel, the consumer, the Australian public and your client and the adviser are all learning together so we’re actually creating an ecosystem that actually grows rapidly,” she said.

“If you decide today or any other day that that’s what we’re going to do collectively and every conversation we have with an adviser helps them have a better conversation with their client, it also helps them transfer knowledge to their client, then we’ve won.”