Speaking to SMSF Adviser, David Moss, director at Accountable Financial Group, said an accountant with no experience of running their own AFSL could be “disastrous”.
“Having your own licence is like having another job,” Mr Moss said. “A lot of people will not have the skills… and if they do, they’ll have it for a few years and realise what a nightmare it is to run a licence.”
“Having an accounting practice and having an [AFSL] are completely different. You’ve got different regulators, it’s nothing alike at all,” he said.
Mr Moss said the limited licence will be no exception, and is likely to “take people out of their practices”.
“A limited AFSL is a licence just like a normal licence, only there’s less things you can advise on,” he said.
Mr Moss also said accountants who become authorised representatives are unlikely to join a bank’s licence.
“Banks are interested in one thing when it comes to accountants and financial planners: distribution. That’s the only word they care about,” he said.
“The number one thing for accountants is that they want to help their clients and they want to do it without being told ‘you have to sell this product.’”
The accountants’ exemption will be removed on 1 July 2016. Accountants wishing to continue giving SMSF advice will need to be licensed under an AFSL.
Grahame, David Moss is my business partner in Accountable, he is also an accountant, SMSF expert trainer and presenter. Accountable offers a financial services training and licensing service only for accountants, with a particular specialisation in SMSF authorised advice.
We are not owned by an institution or the “big end of town”.
The reality is that the Government will remove the accountants SMSF exemption from 1 July 2016. Accountants will need to make a decision whether to become authorised to advise their SMSF clients or refer them to other authorised advisers e.g. financial planners.
Happy to discuss the merits or otherwise of becoming authorised to advise on SMSFs with your clients.
[quote name=”Grahame Stephenson”]Who is Mr Moss? and what are his qualifications? He must work for the big end of town as he tries to frighten all the accountants from doing what they did for over a century. It was the out of work car and insurance salesmen who think they are the experts in investing peoples cash. Mostly loosing it for them.[/quote]
Grahame,
Please, don’t flatter yourself. Your references are both childish and insulting, and I’m glad you’re not my Accountant. Clearly you have no idea. By the way, before you cynically question the qualifications of a contributor, learn how to spell first. Grow up.
Grahame, I hope you are not publicly admitting to breaking the law?
Who is Mr Moss? and what are his qualifications? He must work for the big end of town as he tries to frighten all the accountants from doing what they did for over a century. It was the out of work car and insurance salesmen who think they are the experts in investing peoples cash. Mostly loosing it for them.
This might seem sensational but the reality is based on my initial research that we wmay end up as and authorised rep of a dealer as concluded in the last paragraph above.
Hi
Whilst this article sound sensationalistic i believe based on my research to date that the last paragraph is where we will end up i.e.as an authorised rep of a dealer (this will cost between $5k and $10k per rep per annum plus the initial 8 days study,exams and courses so we may need to decide how many reps we have)
Totally agree, I don’t have time or experience to run an AFSL which is why i recently joined SMSF Advice. My biggest fear was joining a group that belong to a large institution but as i am not allowed to talk about product and they have no ownership of my clients they instead provide me with all the compliance, education, technical expertise, software, templates and training i need.
Fully agree, we have seen some disasters thanks to arrogance. If an accountant thinks he/she can be an AFSL Licensee, SMSF Auditor and an expert in SMSF and run an accounting practice, then the fuse is lit and the clients will be the ones who get hurt when the bomb explodes.