ASIC to shadow shop SMSF advice
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has warned it would shadow shop financial advisers providing advice on self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs).
Deputy chairman, Peter Kell told the 2017 SMSF Association Conference delegates in Melbourne on Thursday it would carry out shadow shopping on those who had recently provided advice on establishing an SMSF or advice that was "currently in play".
"As part of that we'll be doing an advice shadow shop of the sector to get if you like, real time on the ground picture of the sort of advice that's been offered to people out there when it comes to setting up an SMSF so we can get a sense of right, where are things working, where are things not working so well," Kell said.
"We'll obviously communicate with all of you about that. We're getting some useful data from our colleagues at the ATO [Australian Taxation Office] to help us target that effectively. So that's going to be one of the main areas of work for us in the advice space in 2017."
Kell said while this would be carried out in 2017, he did not specify dates.
"What we do find and we've already had this is people ringing us up saying why have you sent around one of your shadow shoppers to my office and without telling me? We're not out in the field yet," he said.
ASIC previously carried out shadow shopping in the retirement income space.
"The last one we did was advice at the point of retirement," Kell said.
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