Shadow shop results reflect need for higher professional standards - SPAA
The Self-Managed Super Fund Professionals' Association (SPAA) has called for higher levels of competency in the provision of financial advice following recent damning results from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC's) shadow shop report.
SPAA chief executive Andrea Slattery said that planning for retirement was one of the most critical phases in an individual's life, and she supported the regulator's approach in undertaking the research.
"The ASIC shadow shop report showed that only 3 per cent of financial advisers achieved the good quality ranking and this highlights the challenge of raising professional standards across the advice industry," Slattery said.
She added that SPAA would continue to work closely with ASIC to ensure professional standards were raised across the financial advice industry.
According to SPAA, the number of self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) professionals successfully completing its SMSF Specialist Advisor and SMSF Specialist Auditor qualifications over the past 12 months had grown by 65 per cent.
Slattery said the growth in accreditation was encouraging and added that the 'Best Interest Duty' contained in the Future of Financial Advice legislation would be a definitive step forward in raising competency standards across the SMSF professional sector.
"Conflicted remuneration continues to be a source of poor advice and SPAA reasserts its view that all commissions for financial products that are embedded or unable to be unbundled are banned," she said.
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