Excise the excesses, says Snowball chief
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The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) should use a sharp instrument to excise the excesses and poor practices of the financial planning industry, according to the managing director of financial planning group Snowball, Tony McDonald.
McDonald used his address to the company’s annual general meeting to welcome the recent findings of the Ripoll Inquiry and to call for a tough approach based on “the consumer being our ultimate master”.
“Around 80 per cent of Australians don’t receive advice,” he said. “I can’t envisage new customers fully embracing advice (even though they should) unless and until the industry embraces further change."
McDonald said any approach to change the regulator needed to ensure that consumers could readily ascertain who was doing what in the supply chain, and for what fee.
He said there was also a need to be mindful of pricing mechanisms or business models that unduly skewed advice towards certain product solutions, particularly where product manufacturers were subsidising one part of the supply chain via distorted charging in other links in the chain.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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