According to Investment Trends’ 2016 SMSF Accountants Report, only 1,000 accountants have successfully got their licensing arrangements in place, through either a full or limited AFSL, in the past 12 months.
Investment Trends said this means there are 5,500 accountants who are now appropriately licensed to provide SMSF advice beyond June 30.
Recent reports from ASIC have shown that the take-up of the limited licence option, which involves an accountant obtaining their own AFSL, is slow.
Only 149 applications were approved as of May 23 this year.
“Despite the deadline being only a month away, there are still 12,500 accountants who want to operate under a full or limited AFS licence but who haven’t completed the qualification process,” Investment Trends senior analyst King Loong Choi said.
The research also found that there are 9,000 accountants who have decided not to become licensed, and will instead rely on referral relationships for their SMSF clients.
Further, Investment Trends noted that those accountants who are moving into the licensing regime will be more involved in providing investment advice to their SMSF clients.
“There is a huge opportunity for accountants to grow their SMSF revenues and broaden their proposition to SMSF clients by making the move to provide investment advice,” Mr Choi said.
+1 to Robert’s comment.
What about online SOA’s? This type of platform never gets much of a mention but if you are an accountant you would be wise to do some Googling and have a look. Here is the dilemma, how much do you think it will cost to get a licenced financial adviser to complete an SOA to setup an SMSF pension? Once you have that number in your head ask yourself how much you expect to pay for the annual audit of that same SMSF? Now here is the problem if your SOA fee is higher than your audit fee ask yourself why is that so when it is obvious that an SMSF audit is a much more involved and complex process? Somewhere in all this is the reason why online SOA’s will be the answer for many accountants and why the financial planning industry is not overly keen on airing the possibilities of the platform.