The financial advice industry should “wheel in” the Minister for Deregulation to every meeting to start reducing red tape in the industry to allow for more accessible financial advice, according to a panel.
A poll conducted at the Financial Services Council’s (FSC’s) Future of Advice Summit panel asked whether there was bandwidth to reduce red tape across the financial advice landscape and 55% of respondents said ‘yes and the sooner the better’.
Another 34% ‘yes but changes must be well-considered’, and 11% said ‘yes but I don’t think big changes is realistic in the next few years’. No respondents said ‘I’m not sure’.
Speaking on panel, My Millennial Money Podcast and personal finance commentator, Glen James, pointed to comments made earlier in the summit by the Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation, and Financial Technology, Jane Hume who said the Government had a Minister for Deregulation looking into reducing the red tape in the industry.
She also noted that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was now turning his attention to this area having now dealt with the plan for the COVID-19 recovery.
“The minister this morning mentioned that we have the Minister of Deregulation – why can’t we wheel him into every meeting we have and say ‘there you go buddy, go for it’,” James said.
“We’re all keen, we’re all professional. Let’s really strip it out. It’s nice to have all these chats and have the minister in but we need to see practical things on the ground and not just plonk it out.”
Also on the panel, PwC partner, financial services and consumer business leader, Nicole Salimbeni said: “There is a role for regulation and regulators – that’s been shown over the last couple of years.
“It’s the layering of the regulation that are very old – the general advice and personal advice delineations are 20 years old so we have to remove some of that to make it easier to understand and implement.”
