At the ifa Client Experience Workshop earlier this month, dealer group chief executives, Rob Coyte of Shartru Wealth, Angus Benbow of Centrepoint Alliance, and Eugene Ardino of Lifespan Financial Planning, were asked about whether non-aligned licensees have banded together to form a group when it comes to lobbying government.
Mr Coyte said it was a big problem that the non-aligned licensees has had no political representation.
“The fact we’re all divided and we’ve got people off in different [directions], we’re fish in a barrel and they’re just shooting us off,” Mr Coyte said.
“Every change that’s come through, there’s hardly any on-the-ground adviser input into what goes down. That’s just an observation.”
Too many voices speaking on behalf of advisers
Mr Ardino said one of the biggest problems with the advice industry is that there are so many associations, with different agendas and voices.
“One of the problems with government is they seem to respond to self-interest, votes and campaign funding,” Mr Ardino said.
“It’s very difficult for a medium-sized dealer group to do much in that space.”
Mr Ardino noted his licensee Lifespan had done a bit of lobbying itself on the issue of grandfathered commissions. However, he also said it has been very difficult to get government to listen to its concerns as it tends to want to deal with the biggest organisations.
“Part of the issue is that the dealer groups with the most advisers was always the institutions. That’s changing as we speak,” he said.
“If you got all the independent dealers together, if you could get them all to agree, it would still be a fraction of what the amount of revenue and the amount of advisers that the institutional licensees represent.
“With that changing, perhaps it’s time for us to do something.”
Lobbying separately confuses the government
Mr Benbow noted the joint lobbying from the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) over the last six months has paid off with the education standard deadlines being extended.
But he also noted the issue with smaller dealer groups lobbying separately is that it confuses the government when it comes to making policy decisions, which then enables them to ignore it all.
Mr Benbow said he pushes a lot of his licensee’s concern up through the AFA and the FPA.
“We then encourage advisers to speak to their local members, so we try to break it up in that way to try and get as much benefit from a single voice,” Mr Benbow said.
Mr Coyte said any lobbying with government has to be approached with care and caution, citing the Life Insurance Framework reforms as an example.
“As soon as someone that is held as the industry voice agrees to a course of action, the politicians just go, ‘The industry agrees. That’s the green light’,” Mr Coyte said.
“That’s where I think we’ve had the breakdown. There’s been a huge disconnect with those that have been representing, and the man or woman on the front line. That’s the thing we’ve got to get around.”
It comes down to the fact that our Government representatives do not understand (comes down to either needing to or wanting to understand) the significant difference financial advice can make for the everyday Australians. These representatives do not have to have a worry, as once they finish their duties representing their constituents they recieve a lifetime pension. What financial advice would they seriously need?
If you are not ‘licensed’ you are free to give whatever ‘advice’ you like and charge whatever you want! You have no idea what it is like to be able to speak to people about what they really want without completing reams of paperwork and paying dealer groups to skim your income, associations who don’t earn their keep, and be compelled to compulsory education standards which are a complete farce and serve no-one other than those who get paid to run them. That’s not a profession. It’s a joke and it’s run by clowns who have no idea. You are all being held hostage by an inept system that is out of control. Not that there’s anything wrong with education, but there’s a lot of broke and unemployed university and academic people out there. The real losers are the public. There’s a war going on and advisers and the public are the losers. The same battle has been fought and lost in England, South Africa and even to a degree in the US. Financial planning will eventually go the way of the Dodo bird. Australia leads the way! Good luck with that!
Old Coytey loves his you beaut metaphors…..stone the crows!
If you are not ‘licensed’ you are free to give whatever ‘advice’ you like and charge whatever you want! You have no idea what it is like to be able to speak to people about what they really want without completing reams of paperwork and paying dealer groups to skim your income, associations who don’t earn their keep, and be compelled to compulsory education standards which are a complete farce and serve no-one other than those who get paid to run them. That’s not a profession. It’s a joke and it’s run by clowns who have no idea. You are all being held hostage by an inept system that is out of control. Not that there’s anything wrong with education, but there’s a lot of broke and unemployed university and academic people out there. The real losers are the public. There’s a war going on and advisers and the public are the losers. The same battle has been fought and lost in England, South Africa and even to a degree in the US. Financial planning will eventually go the way of the Dodo bird. Australia leads the way! Good luck with that!
as i have called for time and again, the only way to spark anything at the fpa is to resign from membership.
i understand that you have more important things to worry about right now and that it may not be the most practical move, but once you complete your grad dip fp, and pass the exam then just give them the flick
You said: good on you Adam. become a shokunin it’s nice high up here. AND always remain anonymous
Unfortunately the FPA does not take warmly to anyone sparking debate about lifting professionalism, holding them to account or speaking ill will of the FPA in public. They’ve actually asked me to leave when I’ve put my name to posts. They’ve ignored planners in the last 10 years and now purposely created an environment (code monitoring bodies) where if you’re kicked out of a profession you’re entire business is over. Charged with that responsibility some Financial Planners that are members of the FPA still fail to see why the FPA getting payments from large institutions and putting the needs of AMP/CBA above the needs of our brothers and sisters in firms like AMP and ordinary Australians first……is not a conflict and a continued path to over regulation and Government intervention.
I spent fourteen years in advice prior to going into management. The problem today is actually significantly worse than when I started; the disconnect between the coalface and the ivory tower.
[quote=Adam][i]can one planner who is still a member of either fpa/afa offer me a logical reason why they are still a member of either the fpa or afa[/i][i][/i]…….
good on you Adam. become a shokunin it’s nice high up here. AND always remain anonymous.
[i]can one planner who is still a member of either fpa/afa offer me a logical reason why they are still a member of either the fpa or afa[/i][i][/i]……. Yes either because 1) You work for one of the large licensee’s and that licensee pays your membership for you in bulk. That gives you an indication of the type of scum bags who are with FPA members. 2) You have no qualifications whatsoever, you don’t give a rats, and the only post nominal after your name is CFP (that’s a pretty sad indication of how badly damaged the CFP brand is…possibly the worst scum bags…. 3) No one has the time to go out and run an association that actually represents planners and so some of us scumbags (that’s me) are hanging on for some slim hope of changing things internally…but after decades we’re now doing TPB courses and we’re leaving this year. 4) We’re just waiting for business cards and other stationary with FPA references to run out and I’m out.
When you have an industry body who has stabbed you all in the back with so many knives how on earth do you expect to survive.
The FPA has deserted you, betrayed you and forgotten who they should be representing.
Want someone to blame? Everyone knows the FPA is solely responsible. Keep paying your membership fees lemmings!
“As soon as someone that is held as the industry voice agrees to a course of action, the politicians just go, ‘The industry agrees. That’s the green light’,” Mr Coyte said.
Take note advisers out there, who have fallen for the line “its time to become a professional” whilst you go bankrupt and realize like many that have already failed, Fee-For-Service on insurance DOES NOT WORK.
[quote=Adam]Let’s get this straight. Joint lobbying by the FPA and the AFA did not get any deadlines extended. Why for $$# sake did so many planners in the first place have to go out and individually lobby Government. It’s because those associations let us down.[/quote][quote=Adam]Let’s get this straight. Joint lobbying by the FPA and the AFA did not get any deadlines extended. Why for $$# sake did so many planners in the first place have to go out and individually lobby Government. It’s because those associations let us down.[/quote]
the funny thing is that despite what you state above, which is in all material respects, true and correct. planners continue to pay membership fees and remain members of the fpa and afa.
can one planner who is still a member of either fpa/afa offer me a logical reason why they are still a member of either the fpa or afa
remember the only thing these people understand – and you can make them by voting with your feet – is when they have to take a pay cut
(and no, there are other associations like the smsfa you can belong to for your tpb registration purposes, by sitting their exam to become a SSA ™ you will also get 1 x exemption for any additional study you may have to do)
“One of the problems with government is they seem to respond to self-interest, votes and campaign funding,” Mr Ardino said.
But somehow this is all illegal if you’re a financial adviser….
Totally agree. One of the biggest distractions is the notion by some in the industry that we need to clean up the whole industry to call ourselves a profession. I have two degrees and have been advising for 25 years and the standards we had 25 years ago ( our dealer group back then had annual internal exams with a pass mark of 80% ) in many ways are a much higher standard than those proposed today. We charge primarily on a fee for service for generally high net worth clients but I can understand the business case for trailing commissions to be paid to fund the servicing of smaller clients. The big instos and fund managers treat people as account numbers. Many want personalised advice to navigate our complicated tax,super and age pension systems and they cannot get that from general or intra fund advice – both of which are ridiculous concepts that are manipulated by the instos and industry funds to flog product. I am no more professional today than I was 25 years ago and whether some in our industry received trailing commissions to service their clients has absolutely no impact on my professional status in the eyes of my clients ( which is the only judgement that matters to me).
Poor lobbying and divergent opinions from industry is not a new phenom, it’s plagued the advice industry for over a decade. And agree that banks have driven far too much of the direction of the industry and as many like me have suspected for quite some time, Banks have been nothing bud bad news for wealth and in-particular advice. Now an over zealous regulator is just shooting people in the street at a time when we desperately need innovation. But who is going to be prepared to do so when on a whim ASIC can just come along and shut you down. The result is no innovation and steady decline of the practitioner. ITs plain to see that despite the warnings from the UK about the impact their similar changes had, we are heading down the same path and its not pretty for small firms, clients or the industry at large.
100% agree. A separate division in our business is a mortgage broking side. Throughout the farcical RC and since the mortgage broker national body has been able to bring the politicians to heel to a very large extent, good example just this week where they are vehemently opposing the latest shite Canberra has concocted.
The other advantage they have of course is their only opposition is the banks, whom Labor hate anyway.
In our world, the MAIN difference is that Labor have a very real incentive to decimate our profession to further their own interests via Unions super funds providing tens of millions of dollars per year in funding to them and union bodies. The ISA all sing from the same hymn sheet and have even constructed other independent sounding bodies like AIST etc to further lobby the fickle, inept, feeble-minded, self-interested politicians who care not at all for our survival.
Let’s get this straight. Joint lobbying by the FPA and the AFA did not get any deadlines extended. Why for $$# sake did so many planners in the first place have to go out and individually lobby Government. It’s because those associations let us down.
Age old rule–divide and conquer, nothing has changed.