Advisers should ‘take market share’ from accountants

Speaking to ifa, FPA head of policy and government relations Ben Marshan said advisers should “absolutely be looking to take market share from accountants” when it comes to the self-managed superannuation market.

“Financial planners should be absolutely backing themselves to be the experts in this space, it’s what planners do day in and day out, but it’s not what accountants do day in and day out,” Mr Marshan said.

“Financial planners are significantly better placed to be providing advice to consumers around self-managed super funds.”

Asked whether the new adviser education standards – which Mr Marshan said will also apply to accountants operating under a limited licence – will provide an opportunity for advisers to increase their market share, he replied that it was unlikey to add “any additional impetus”.

“Financial planners have much more ability to test and understand clients’ overall financial position, their level of understanding around whether they’ve got the capacity to run a self-managed super fund, whether they’ve got the desire to run a self-managed super fund, so I would say there’s merit in that idea,” he said.

“But what I will say is that the AFSL regime has been set up the way it has, and accountants are able to apply for the limited licences and therefore they’ll be able to keep going, I would suggest most accountants already have degrees, most of them I would be okay with post-graduate study, so I wouldn’t think it’s too much of a stretch for a lot of them to be doing additional study.”