Risk profiling a ‘pain point’ for licensed accountants
Uncertainty around whether licensed accountants are authorised to undertake risk profiling on clients is resulting in challenges where they want to provide advice on SMSF contributions, according to one industry consultant.
Licensing for Accountants chief executive Kath Bowler says one of the challenges facing accountants operating under limited licenses is determining whether they can legally conduct risk profiling on their clients.
“It was always going to become an issue, but now it is an issue,” Ms Bowler told SMSF Adviser.
“As they move through this [licensing] journey, they’re seeing this pain point with profiling. Does their authorisation allow them? How do they do it? And if they don’t do risk profiling, how do they do any kinds of projections going forward?”
Ms Bowler said the uncertainty around whether accountants are able to conduct risk profiling becomes an issue when they want to provide advice around superannuation contributions, because the accountant needs to be able to demonstrate that the client will be in a better position.
“So to do that, they might need to do some modelling but they need some anchor to base that modelling off. For planners it’s risk profiling,” she said.
Another issue with this is that most of the risk profiling tools in the market provide an asset allocation that is quite detailed in terms of class of product.
“For that reason, it wouldn’t be able to be provided if you only had super on your licence,” Ms Bowler said.
“We’re trying to find solutions at the moment. Hopefully, once we get a solution, [accountants] can move forward and give the advice, but it really is a bit of a stumbling block and causing a lot of angst because they just can’t get moving because of this one piece.”
Miranda Brownlee
Miranda Brownlee is the deputy editor of SMSF Adviser, which is the leading source of news, strategy and educational content for professionals working in the SMSF sector.
Since joining the team in 2014, Miranda has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest superannuation stories in Australia, and has reported extensively on technical strategy and legislative updates.
Miranda also has broad business and financial services reporting experience, having written for titles including Investor Daily, ifa and Accountants Daily.
