Lobbying by the major accounting groups appears to have paid dividends on APES 230, with the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board’s (APESB’s) latest board papers revealing significant concessions on key elements such as asset-based fees.
Count Financial chief executive David Lane has welcomed the changes indicated in the board papers and said they represented a significant improvement on those originally released in November last year.
“I regard this as a win for the end client and a win for accountancy-based financial advisers,” he said.
Lane said he regarded one of the most important elements of change indicated in the APESB papers as being those related to the best interests duty, which was now much more closely aligned with the requirements contained in the Future of Financial Advice changes.
He said he now believed the direction being taken by the APESB was far less likely to act as an impediment to accountants acting in the advice arena.
