FAAA details the ‘three pillars’ of its strategic plan

Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) chair David Sharpe outlined the FAAA Strategy 2024-2030 at its congress in Brisbane on Wednesday.

The “deliberately ambitious” plan, Sharpe said, was developed collaboratively with the FAAA board and management, as well as through direct feedback and engagement with members.

“The Strategy maps out the vision that the FAAA aims to achieve as we approach 2030 and sets out how we intend to accomplish this,” he said.

“The environment in which we operate is rapidly changing, and professional financial planners are being challenged more than ever before. The rapid pace and uncertainty surrounding regulatory change, rising costs, falling numbers of professional financial advisers and improving public perceptions of our profession are all significant trends that we aim to address.”

Top of the agenda for the FAAA is putting members first, with Sharpe explaining that the association’s main role is “ensuring our members, and their careers and businesses, are successful”.

“This means ensuring members are connected to valuable communities, that they are up-to-date with advances to run their businesses, and that they have access to high quality and relevant professional development and education,” he explained.

The second pillar centres on growing the profession, with Sharpe noting that with the number of advisers continuing to fall, it “becomes more difficult to service the growing advice demands of Australians”.

“We are working on promoting entry and career pathways to new and returning financial advisers, including promoting the profession as a career-change option and to make Australia an attractive option for skilled migration,” he said.

“We are already working to build the pipeline for financial advice in education and the Professional Year.”

Reiterating that the ability to self-regulate is a “crucial goal” for the FAAA, Sharpe said the third and final pillar is leading the profession.

“Our members tell us that they expect the FAAA to be on the front foot, boldly and loudly speaking on their behalf and leading our profession forwards,” he said.

“A crucial goal is to one day be able to self-regulate as a profession, and we believe the first step is that by 2030, some level of co-regulation should exist.

“We’ve been too beholden to those outside our profession to govern our fate and to determine our standards – we believe we are now ready and qualified to ultimately control our own education standards and training, code of ethics and disciplinary regime. This is a long-term process, but we are committed to moving towards what other professions already have. This shouldn’t be controversial.”

Sharpe added that the FAAA would continue to work for and with members to achieve their goals.

“Our membership is made up of people with a range of different experiences and views, and we take our responsibility seriously of hearing what our members think and what is important to them and, where there is a clear majority, representing those interests,” he said.

“It is critical to the success of the FAAA that we meet our members’ needs, supporting them in their careers and their businesses while they serve their clients.”