Separate advisers from sales agents, says Centric

Major dealer group Centric Wealth has called for the clear delineation of commissions paid to “sales agents” responsible for putting a superannuation fund in place and payments to financial planners who provide ongoing advice.

In a submission to the second phase of the Cooper Review, Centric said there had been a failure to distinguish between the two very different arrangements.

“It is most unfortunate that in the course of recent public debate over advice, there has been a failure to distinguish between commissions paid from retail super fund providers to sales agents who originally put the fund in place at an employer’s organisation and ongoing payments made to advisers from a fund (often not the original salesperson) who do valuable work in advising and supporting members of that fund,” it said.

The submission said Centric believed attached or embedded advice was essential to a super fund from a member’s point of view and that good advice should add more value than it costs.

Centric argued that various types of advice should be treated and paid for in different ways, with the cost of “general advice” being borne by all members while “personal advice” is paid by a combination of compulsory fees from the fund and user-pays fees.