Advice tops employee benefit wish list
Financial advice is now rated as the most valuable employee benefit, particularly among people over 50, according to Mercer's David Anderson.
Addressing the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia conference, Anderson said financial planners and superannuation funds were the primary sources of the highly-valued advice.
Anderson said the impact of the global financial crisis had created uncertainty in the minds of working Australians.
He said Mercer research had revealed that most Australians now expected to delay their retirement for up to six years.
He also said the number of Australians who expected to retire aged over 70 had doubled since 2006, and now stood at 26 per cent.
As part of the same conference session, the chief executive of the Financial Planning Association, Jo-Anne Bloch, said her organisation now regarded the planner remuneration debate as being over.
"It's over for us, but how the Ripoll inquiry handles it is another matter," she said. "How the Government then implements change is the tricky part."
Looking at the eventual regulatory landscape for financial planning, Bloch urged a co-regulatory approach, but suggested the bar needed to be raised on licensing.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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