FPA announces research grant recipients

The grants are intended to “grow relationships between the tertiary sector and the financial planning profession”, the FPA said in a statement, adding that the funding pool has tripled in 2017 up to $30,000.

“The FPEC Academic research grants are jointly sponsored by the Financial Planning Association of Australia, AMP and NAB, and recognise those that have demonstrated a commitment to encouraging the development of financial planning as an academic discipline in its own right,” the statement said.

There were four grant recipients in 2017; academics from RMIT and Deakin University studying ethical challenges in advice, academics from Griffith University working with Modoras Financial Performance mapping the advice needs of small business owners, another team from RMIT researching barriers to entry for women in advice, and a final team from Griffith University working with a recruitment firm on remuneration and demand for advisers.

FPA chief executive Dante De Gori said research into the advice industry was important to the industry’s development.

“Academic research is valuable to the profession and many of the projects have resulted in papers being published in the Financial Planning Research Journal. We congratulate the winners on their outstanding work,” he said.

In October, FASEA announced it would adopt the Financial Planning Education Council’s Curriculum and Approved Degrees list for its education standards.

The FPA’s CFP program will not meet the requirements for a qualification under this regime, but Mr De Gori told ifa that the industry body intends to lobby for a prior learning recognition framework, under which the CFP course would replace some of the full eight units of an approved course.