Forget FOFA and focus on ownership: BFPPG
Boutique Financial Planners Principals' Group (BFPPG) has renewed its push for transparent licensee ownership disclosure, hoping the rounding off of Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms will allow the profession to channel its attention into other priorities.
Speaking to Money Management about the independent group's new year focus, BFPPG president Wayne Roggero said it was time the planning profession regrouped and honed its efforts into distinguishing between independent advisories and those financed by large corporates.
"A lot of small businesses have been so focused on FOFA, we've got to start focusing on clients again," he said.
"If you want us to be a profession, you need to prioritise these changes.
"The client has to know who the ultimate owner is and not hidden on page 27."
Clearer ownership disclosure is a service to clients, he said, because "it's about ensuring the client knows who they are ultimately dealing with" and what restrictions or liberties that ownership offers.
Roggero said he would expect disclosure of ownership would drive more clients back to independent licensees.
He said BFPPG would lobby with other industry bodies to ensure the issue is a matter of urgency in 2014.
BFPPG's concerns follow Roy Morgan research released last year that showed more than 50 per cent of clients using Commonwealth Bank-owned dealer group Financial Wisdom believed the firm was independent.
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