At the time of writing, all the submissions to the Quality of Advice Review Issues Paper have now been received, making for interesting reading.
According to Treasury, some 133 submissions were made, including 17 which were confidential and 22 by individuals. Submissions have ranged across professions from law firms, money coaches, superannuation funds as well as financial advisers and their member organisations
What was particularly interesting were the submissions made by individual advisers themselves; member organisations may make Government submissions regularly, but it is much harder to convince an individual person to do so.
It is those, much like the comments page on our website, that give the sharpest insight into views on the coal face of the industry.
Having read through the numerous submissions, the starkest problem which comes up time and again is Statements of Advice and how they are too long, too unwieldly, that investors struggle to understand them and advisers spend hours compiling them.
This is followed by the benefit (or lack thereof) from financial technology and whether it has a place to benefit advisers and subsequently their clients. Advisers agued if fintech was a viable option, then the big banks would have already utilised it and that it did not get to the root cause of the problem which was overregulation. Others said they would like to use it but feared it would be unable to meet the strict regulatory requirements imposed on advisers.
The third topic regularly mentioned was the definitions of financial advice; general advice, comprehensive financial advice, guidance, personal financial advice and so on. Advisers feel the different definitions confuse their clients and leave them powerless to help clients with simple 5-minute problems. (This is also a topic being considered by the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of financial services legislation.)
The task for the committee and reviewer Michelle Levy now will be to sift through these submissions and pull out what they consider the most-pressing issues.
At least advisers can say they have made their voices known.
