FOFA borders on social engineering: Duffield

The Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) and superannuation reforms have been slammed as veering close to social engineering at a Financial Services Council/Deloitte lunch in Melbourne.

Speaking at the conference, Plum Financial Services non-executive director and former deputy chairman of the FSC Jeremy Duffield warned that the Government was stepping beyond the ideal of offering investment choice with boundaries to consumers, and presaging a social engineering approach to industry competition.

"That would come at the expense of free markets," Duffield said.

Duffield questioned whether the Government considered that FOFA may cause a wave of financial planner consolidation in the industry.

The already existing super fund default options would also become devalued as a result of the Government's approach to default options, he said.

The Government was trying to take hold of the reins of industry innovation to an unnecessary extent, Duffield said.

"It's one thing to say consumers can have bounded choice, but another step entirely to say that industry competitors can only compete in a certain way," he said.

The Government was moving from nudging the industry in a certain direction by tweaking policies, to "shoving them" in the direction it wants to go, Duffield said.

Duffield questioned whether the balance in the "joint venture" of government regulation and industry was shifting too far.