Michelle Levy has determined “the law is the wrong round” ahead of the publication of the Quality of Advice (QOA) Review.
Speaking at the FPA Professional Congress in Sydney, Levy, who was reviewer of the QOA, was interviewed by FPA chief executive, Sarah Abood.
“The main thing that has occurred to me is the law is the wrong way round. People have complained about its inflexibility and how it could be easier to understand and apply.
“The law focuses on what the people who need to give advice with and what documents they should provide when it should be focused on what does the consumer want? That’s how the law should be, it should be about helping consumers get better advice.”
She said she had been surprised how passionate the industry had been about the review.
“I have been surprised how personal it is for everyone, how invested and passionate they are about it and how passionate I am wanting to solve it. It is all I can think about now.”
The review was due to be presented to Government on 16 December and she said there were unlikely to be any huge surprises from the proposals paper which she said had been “well received”.
Regarding which parts could be implemented quickly, she said she believed changes to fee disclosure could be implemented quickly which would remove the requirement for a fee disclosure statement.
Regime from the consumer perspective should look like this – The advice being given is labelled as either “independent advice” (meaning the adviser is not owned by the product provider) or “product information advice” (meaning factual information provided by the product supplier). Product information advice should come with a consumer warning that it is not independent financial advice, that there may be other alternatives and those alternatives may be better. Simples
The FDS is not the time and cost consumer, its the annual opt in with one form for the supplier and another to satisfy ASIC. This was dumb and badly constructed rushed legislation.
Some uncommon sense at last!