Changes to Conflicted Remuneration means that if a retail client’s payment (or other benefit) to you is a payment (or other benefit) given in relation to a financial product or a financial service, it is now definitely not conflicted remuneration.

Advisers no longer need to provide a Financial Services Guide (FSG) to every single client. Instead, they can now make this information available as Website Disclosure Information on their website. This change offers a great opportunity to simplify the administrative side of financial advice and modernise how we engage with clients.

Financial advisers often face questions about how to navigate ethical obligations while remaining compliant with regulations. A key issue frequently raised is the relationship between referral fees and conflicts of interest.

Recently, we were asked by an advisor about meeting their obligations under the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

The DBFO Act, which received royal assent on 9 July 2024, represents Government’s response to QAR final report recommendations 7, 8, 10, 13.1–13.5 and 13.7–13.9. It is the first tranche (‘Tranche 1’) of Government legislation as part of the DBFO package. 

ASIC has issued the levy notices for the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR).

At the recent the Professional Planner Licensee Summit, ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland outlined that the regulator has been warning all licensees for the past two years that they must lift their game in respect to breach reporting

This article will address some of the issues to consider and how to go about approaching the SOA vs ROA conundrum.

There have been 16 outcomes issued by the Financial Services and Credit Panel (FSCP) since its launch in 2023. Here are some statistics on which issues are frequently occurring:

Under recent legislative changes, as an Australian financial services (AFS) licensee, who provide financial services to retail clients, we are required to report to ASIC any consumer and small business complaints under the internal dispute resolution (IDR) procedures.

So, what does that mean?

If you have recently submitted an SOA through for compliance vetting, you will notice that we are now providing a formal Compliance File Review Report, which summarises the findings and observations made on the file.

In this blog post, we will clarify the advisers role in assisting clients with developing investment strategies for the SMSF. There is sometimes confusion as to whose role it is to develop the investment strategy – is that the accountants job, or can you do that as the adviser?

As financial advisors, we often face situations where we have to provide advice based on incomplete or inaccurate information. This can be challenging, but there are ways to navigate these situations and still provide appropriate advice to our clients.

We have recently been working with advisers on trying to simplify your advice. To demonstrate this, we will go through a recent client scenario:

A lot of the hype is just conceptual, and nobody has really been able to address any practical use of AI in advice, particularly the biggest potential benefit - paraplanning. So….. Why aren’t we using it?

Explore the exposure effect in financial advice, leveraging familiarity to attract clients, enhance credibility, and combine expertise with value.

Most Advisers seek to create an engagement with clients that involves very little tension around the pricing discussion. Yet this almost always leads to lower margins, lower service levels, and lower perceived value.

With the Quality of Advice Review focused on making financial advice more accessible for all Australians, there will undoubtedly be increased importance placed on effective marketing strategies to attract new clients. Here’s how we can help you out:

In this article, we look at how compliance has completely dominated the focus of an advice practice and the ways you can shift that focus back to demonstrating the value of your advice.

Changing Licensee to IIP - FAQ’s: Here are the things you ought to know