Have shelf space fees become ‘training fees’?
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has been questioned in a Parliamentary Committee about whether the outlawing of shelf space fee arrangements has simply seen them morph into the payment of training fees by insurers.
NSW Labor Senator, Deborah O’Neill asked senior Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) officers whether, in anticipation of the outlawing of shelf space fees, they had transitioned into training fees.
O’Neill said during a public hearing of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services that her concern was that shelf fees, “which were the old way to get your product listed with these otherwise vertically integrated companies where the big amount of business is, had converted and morphed into something that was now outside some of the legislation that had tried to curb this practice, and they had turned into a training fee”.
Senior ASIC officer, Louise Macaulay said that training fees were allowed under the ban on conflicted remuneration but there are parameters around that and that training had to be in relation to the financial services business and it had to be a certain number of hours per day and not include travel and accommodation costs.
Macaulay said that ASIC had not followed up on the issue of whether shelf space fees morphed into training fees.
Recommended for you
With an advice M&A deal taking around six months to enact, two experts have shared their tips on how buyers and sellers can avoid “deal fatigue” and prevent potential deals from collapsing.
Several financial advisers have been shortlisted in the ninth annual Women in Finance Awards 2025, to be held on 14 November.
Digital advice tools are on the rise, but licensees will need to ensure they still meet adviser obligations or potentially risk a class action if clients lose money from a rogue algorithm.
Shaw and Partners has merged with Sydney wealth manager Kennedy Partners Wealth, while Ord Minnett has hired a private wealth adviser from Morgan Stanley.
