At the FPA Congress in Melbourne yesterday, the advice body presented the findings of research conducted by its Future of the Statement of Advice Working Group.
The working group included FPA members, regulators, compliance experts, lawyers, licensees, content and digital media specialists, and advice technology specialists.
It said that there are no legal or regulatory barriers to members creating and delivering advice digitally. The FPA subsequently concluded that modes of communication such as video, audio, imagery, infographics, graphs and quizzes are effective ways to deliver advice.
FPA chief executive Dante De Gori said the best client outcomes can be reached by adopting technology to deliver advice in a smarter, safer and more efficient way.
“The future of financial advice delivery will be one where every client is given their own individual, tailored experience based on their unique communication and behavioural preferences,” Mr De Gori said.
“It will harness the power of appropriate digital technology solutions to make the experience a meaningful and more engaging one for the client. It’s about prioritising what’s best for the client, rather simply ticking compliance and legal requirements.”
FPA head of policy and standards Ben Marshan said its approach has been to review the SOA with fresh eyes, reassess its purpose and look into what the next decade of advice delivery could be for consumers and how it can be improved.
“As part of this, we explored how technology can be harnessed to improve the advice experience and progress the evolution of the SOA,” Mr Marshan said.
“Numerous consumer behavioural finance research reports identify that the long-form, text-heavy way that SOAs are provided to clients does not match up with the way that a large majority of people best digest and understand complex information.
“In fact, according to the Social Science Research Network, 65 per cent of people are visual learners. Therefore this presents a huge challenge for consumers who are expected to comprehend long written and often complex documents. For example, consumers are far more likely to remember a call to action after watching a video, compared to reading it in text format.”
Just listen to that corporate dribble-speak of De Gori. Client best interest, hmmm . . . yep . . . FPA, FARCIA et al would not know the meaning of it. You never hear any of them talk about the travesty for clients of the unintended consequences of the nonsense LIF or the blinkered academia of the Hayne idiot of the RC recommendations.
Why has it suddenly dawned on the FPA that SOA’ s are complex documents unsuitable for delivering professional client centric advice. Without FoFA and the RC they would no doubt be still singing the praises of SOAs as best practice!
Digital SoA’s maybe the future but the FPA isn’t. We know AMP has the FPA on it’s payroll via the Professional Partner Program and of course if you want to get rid of an expensive adviser network you get a body like the FPA to lobby for easier ways to deliver advice via electronic means. So the FPA recognizes the unpracticability of a SoA and yet with over $10 million of members funds sitting in cash…… this is the best solution. Lobbying Treasury to reduce red tape and compliance never comes to mind…mmmmm. I’ll wait for tomorrow’s snippet where as a result of less advisers due to FASEA the solution is an APP designed by AMP for consumers.