Addressing the ASFA virtual conference on Thursday, Aware Super group executive for advice Sarah Forman said the fund was urging the regulator to extend what was possible to in-house advisers when providing intra-fund services.
“Through the CP 332 submissions, our fund, like others in the industry, has advocated for some expansion of what can be provided in that model,” Ms Forman said.
“There’s a lack of clarity and licensees are erring on the side of caution [regarding] conversations around Centrelink entitlements and talking about a complete household income for retirement planning. More people need to have the conversation around what’s available to them beyond the funds they’re in today to help them with their retirement.”
Ms Forman said as the cost of personal advice rose and more retail advisers exited the industry, it was important for fund members to be able to access a low-cost middle ground between general and comprehensive advice.
“We see intra-fund advice as the accessible way for members to access a level of advice that’s affordable to them. Members of our fund cover a divergent part of the community — teachers, nurses, emergency and government workers,” she said.
“Where we see the advice industry contracting back and numbers shrinking, those that remain are going ‘the only way I can be viable is to service high-net-worth [clients]’.
“We also want people to be able to get information if they want to self-direct, and the extent of that is taking them to tools that enable them to explore scenarios and lead them to become more informed.
“It’s hard to transition from that to an offer that doesn’t have a big price tag on it, because the limitations of intra-fund advice mean you tip from ‘I’m playing around and I just wanted to clarify a couple of things’ to ‘Now I’m into fee-paying advice’.”
With the number of consumers interested in advice having tripled from 2015 to 2020, but most still not willing to pay more than $1,000, Link Advice chief executive Duncan McPherson said intra-fund could play a key role in introducing more consumers to the idea of advice and its value.
“The role intra-fund plays in helping someone understand that little bit more. General advice has a role to play because some people are happy to understand something and then they’re happy to go off and do it themselves,” Mr McPherson said.
“Funds have a good trust level with members and the ecosystem to be able to respond to those questions — the easier we make that, the more people will have circumstances in the future that want to engage with advice more deeply. Not everyone is going to go to [an adviser], but we want the right people to go and benefit from it.”
If you look at, say, the travel industry. When planning to travel, you have the option of ‘self-serving’ or, engaging a travel agent. The former is often ‘cheaper’ but very labour intensive. You are required to do the research, understand the ‘product(s)’ and make your own choices.
If individuals don’t want to pay for advice, rather than the industry grappling to identify how to provide ‘low cost services’, wouldn’t it be a better outcome to adopt a model such as you see in, say the travel industry?
The onus is then on financial product providers, such as industry superannuation funds, to provide good information that is easily accessible by members. If the advice is so simple, the member should be able to discern it for themselves.
We all know what the issue is likely to be though – it is easier to pick up a phone to get an answer than it is to do your own research.
Instead of the industry responding to this apathy, it should be changing the messaging so that the public understand that personal advice is not the cheapest option.
I’ve never gotten a 100 page SOA that I didn’t read from a travel agent. This is just a biased grab to expand their services for no real cost, can’t blame them for that but it doesn’t mean its the correct course of action.