‘There’s no real change’: Industry figure ‘very disappointed’ with QAR proposal paper

Despite a positive reception from the sector since its release last month, a senior industry figure has slammed the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) proposal paper.

On a new episode of the ifa Show podcast, principal of Moran Partners Financial Planning and the founder and CEO of iFactFind, Dr Paul Moran, specifically called out the proposal paper and said he is “very disappointed” with the recommendations, saying it should be called the “Quantity of Advice Review”.

“As far as I can tell, other than a sweetener of no ongoing SOAs… regulated financial advisers will still have to operate under the same rules and regulations they currently operate under,” Dr Moran said.

“There's no real change. Sure, there's a change around fee consent and things like that, which is an obvious change given the debacle that's been around the fee consents over the last couple of years.

Similarly to recent concerns raised by the Stockbrokers and Investment Advisers Association (SIAA), Dr Moran also noted a proposal to proposal to remove “general advice”.

In the paper, QAR reviewer Michelle Levy proposed that the “definition of ‘personal advice’ should be somewhat broader so it is clear that it applies whenever a recommendation or opinion is provided to a client about a financial product (or class of financial product) and, at the time the advice is provided, the provider has or holds information about the client's objectives, needs or any aspect of their financial situation”.

Ms Levy also confirmed that she believes changes must be made to the regulatory framework.

“We're having two tiers of who can give personal advice,” Dr Moran said.

“We're talking about unqualified people employed by product issuers to give personal advice to people about their products. And then a regulated financial adviser is giving personal advice under a completely different regulatory environment.”

Listen to the full podcast with Dr Moran here.

A number of industry associations have responded positively to the proposal paper in recent weeks including the Joint Associations Working Group, the SMSF Association, and the Financial Services Council.

Ms Levy recently discussed progress on the QAR on the ifa Show podcast. Listen to the full episode here.

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.