Industry funds target accountants providing advice
The Industry Super Network (ISN) has taken its campaign on adviser remuneration into the accountancy profession, arguing for the imposition of a fiduciary relationship on accountants providing advice.
The ISN’s latest efforts are contained in a submission to the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board (APESB), which the industry fund group has made public, that declares that accountants who provide financial advice need to make a choice between “professionalism or sales”.
The ISN submission supports a new draft standard, APES 230, which it says would remove conflicts of interest by imposing a fiduciary relationship on accountants providing advice to clients and restricting their remuneration to fee-for-service arrangements.
It described the APESB as having taken a “principled stance against conflicted forms of remuneration, including commissions, asset-based fees, bonuses and other fees contingent on product sales or the accumulation of funds under management”.
ISN chief executive David Whiteley claimed the accounting body had recognised that ongoing asset-based advice fees were inconsistent with fully independent, professional financial advice delivered in the client’s best interest and had proposed a prohibition of ongoing asset-based fees.
He claimed the draft standard would help restore consumer confidence in financial planners.
“The accounting professional faces a fork in the road,” Whiteley said. “Accountants who provide financial advice can either adopt the higher professional standards applying to other fields of accounting, or slip into the sales culture that typifies the financial planning industry.”
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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