Articles

Smarter Compliance. In theory, in the financial advice process, every client is a new client, and every investigation into relevant circumstances is open-ended. However, some advisers take short cuts, reverse-engineer circumstances to suit their recommendations or simply rely on assumptions; three strategies that often lead to significant, and often detrimental, problems. In this article, we’ll look at four recent examples and identify how these errors could simply have been avoided.

Smarter compliance. Advisers may understand their obligations with respect to superannuation switching advice, but when it comes to giving advice to small business owners about Self Managed Super Funds (SMSF)s, they often forget to consider the legal ownership of the “source of funds”. This can lead to a cascading effect where the broader advice is insufficiently related to the client’s relevant circumstances, and the adviser’s and Licensee’s risk is increased. This article is the first in a two-part special that uses a Case Study to highlight some compliance issues with SMSF advice and also the importance of considering the source

Smarter Compliance. A key consideration in the majority of financial advice complaints AFCA handle is evaluating whether clients have provided informed consent for the advice. Given this, how much financial product advice about future events should be included in your Statements of Advice (SoAs)? Are you at risk of muddying the waters and adding unnecessary complexity that could confuse or mislead clients about the key matters at hand? In this article we’ll start by considering the future, but then provide tips and traps for where to draw the line on advice about future events.