Advice industry won’t be alone in dealing with change in 2016 and beyond

Paul Tynan

As another year comes to an end, Connect Financial Service Brokers (Connect) CEO Paul Tynan strongly recommends advisers to quickly forget about the ‘good old days’, FoFA and the Life Insurance Framework (LIF) and focus on the big issue of attaining appropriate education and industry qualification standards that will be coming into effect in 2016.

However, financial advisers won’t be alone attests Tynan as service providers in other sectors will be joining them to deal with an ever increasing array of regulatory and legislative change.

The advice profession will continue to be under the microscope – in fact more so than ever – and the need for appropriate academic and professional qualifications to operate a financial advice practice will see many reluctant principals and practitioners heading to the classrooms in the New Year.

An interesting outcome of the focus will be the role of professional member associations such as the AFA and FPA and if they will come under pressure from learning and qualification providers seeking to capitalise on this demand.

From January 1st all AFS licensees and representatives will have to be registered with the Tax Practitioners Board if they meet the transitional or standard eligibility requirements.

The mortgage industry will be undergoing its own review and education standards and professionalism will be top of the agenda.

The real estate sector will also come under scrutiny as the property market cools and some practices in relation to real estate advice, especially in the area of negative gearing and self managed superannuation funds are highlighted.

So why all this change and is it really necessary?

In one word, “yes”, says Paul Tynan. “The advice sector is moving to a professional footing and ongoing reform that reinforces and supports this framework is the endeavour of the regulators and industry bodies. At the end of all this change, financial advisers will be highly regarded experts and their services paid for in the same manner as those of the accounting, legal, etc professions”.

“The financial advice sector is seen as the pioneer for change with other sectors such as mortgage, real estate, etc taking note as they will soon be dealing with similar changes a lot sooner than many expected”.

In the end, the outcome will be a safe, sound and trusted advisers and industries that provide the highest levels of reassurance to consumers that their financial well being is the driving priority concluded Paul Tynan.