Planners resigned to FOFA
Many financial planners have already decided that the legislation that emerges from the Government’s Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) changes will be unacceptable and run counter to their interests.
A survey conducted by Money Management last week revealed more than 90 per cent of respondents believed the major financial planning organisations would fail to extract sufficient compromises on the FOFA changes to make the ultimate package acceptable.
More than 85 per cent of respondents to the survey said they not only believed the industry should mount a legal challenge to the FOFA proposals, particularly opt-in, but that they would be prepared to help fund such a challenge.
The bad news for the major financial planning industry groups – the Financial Planning Association (FPA) and the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) – is that no matter what concessions they ultimately manage to extract from the Government on the FOFA proposals, they are unlikely to impress a significant segment of their memberships.
Asked whether they believed the major financial planning groups would be successful in negotiating a viable outcome on FOFA, 92 per cent of respondents answered ‘No, I believe the outcome will be unacceptable’.
A further 6 per cent of respondents said that while they believed the planning groups would succeed in negotiating a viable outcome, there would still be elements they did not like. Only 2 per cent of respondents suggested they believed they would find the FOFA legislation acceptable.
Asked their views on a suggestion by Victorian regional planning principal, Brian Handley (pictured), that the financial planning industry should emulate other industry sectors by mounting a legal challenge to the FOFA proposals (particularly opt in), 85 per cent of respondents said they would support such a move.
Of that 85 per cent of respondents, 80 per cent said they would be prepared to fund such a move.
Many survey respondents added comments to their responses highly critical of the Government, and some critical of the role played by the industry representative groups.
Significantly, even some of those respondents who believed that the industry groups would succeed in delivering a viable outcome with some unpalatable elements said they would both support and help fund a legal challenge.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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