Investor concern about regulatory change
A global investor study by the State Street Centre for Applied Research (CAR) has found that a significant number of Australian investors harbour serious concerns over upcoming regulatory change.
The study, entitled The Influential Investor: How Investor Behaviour is Redefining Performance, revealed that investors are wary of the capacity for regulatory initiatives to effectively address underlying financial issues, with less than half of Australian survey participants believing that their advisers were acting in their best interests when offering products and services.
The prospect of additional costs arising from any regulatory change was found to be an additional concern.
Commenting on the study, Kelly McKenna, global head of CAR, said investors were also not necessarily acting in their own best interests as they became more aware of misaligned interests amongst investment providers, governments and markets.
"While investors have never been as aware of their micro and macro environments, they are exhibiting behaviours that are divorced from their stated investment objectives," she said.
The good news for Australia came in the study's projections of the country's liquid financial wealth, which is forecast to grow from 12th position globally in 2011 to 9th by 2020.
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Staff Writer
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