Advisers must future-proof businesses
The Association of Financial Advisers' (AFA's) national president, Deborah Kent, has called on all advisers and members to stand as a collective and embrace the changing nature of the advice profession even as the AFA extraordinary general meeting looms today to vote on a proposed resolution on the life insurance reforms.
Speaking at the AFA 2016 National Adviser Conference opening ceremony on Wednesday, Kent said the advice industry had become more complex as advisers were not just an agent of an insurance company whose purpose was to sell insurance cover as was the case in the 1970s.
Financial advice was now a convergence of disciplines to protect clients including superannuation, investment, credit, taxation, as well as the rules, legislation, and licensing, due to which a "simple world" was now "clogged" up with complexity, Kent said.
"At this conference I want to call on everyone to stand as a collective, to embrace the vision of the future profession that we want to create, rise to the challenge of change so we can all do what we do best which is giving more advice to Australians," she said.
"Legislation and regulation will constantly be there in the background pushing us out of our comfort zone, challenging the very thing that we have known and done for years.
"As advisers we have the resilience to tackle these challenges and turn them into opportunities that lie in front of us," she said.
While conferences used to be about selling and how best to do it, this year's conference was about future proofing advice businesses for the next five to 10 years, with Kent emphasising the industry must share goals and push themselves out of their comfort zone to achieve this.
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