Petition - Reducing the cost of Financial Advice for Consumers

Petition to the Australian Parliament​

Reducing the cost of Financial Advice for Consumers​

Our representative body “The Association of Independent Owned Financial Professionals” (AIOFP) has been campaigning for several years about the escalating costs of compliance and the impact this is having on the cost of financial advice to Australian Consumers.

The AIOFP launched a petition through the Australian Parliament to express our concerns about this issue and we need your help in getting our message across to the government.

By signing this Petition, you are registering your concern that this issue matters to you and you want compliance to reduce the amount of paperwork required to provide financial advice and stop the ever-increasing costs that you must bear to receive advice.

Before we can give you financial advice, we must complete a fact find or know your client which covers everything from your health, your estate planning, financial budget, details of your children, your goals and many other aspects of your private life.

Then we must complete a risk profile to assess your attitude to financial risk taking and finally we must produce a Statement of Advice.

After completing all this research, we must then review your existing investments and compare them to any product we may recommend.

Whilst some of these tasks are essential for some clients, others only want simple advice, for example, someone wants us to sell or manage their share portfolio. Whilst I would still complete some basic information about our client, I would not need to complete a risk profile or carry out research on their existing investments unless requested to do so, as we generally will not be changing anything unless requested to by our client.

At present the government and ASIC control what financial advice is available to the Australian Public, and you have very little say in this process. Therefore, many people shy away from financial advice because it is too expensive.

I will give a comparison, if you were ill and wanted to see your doctor, could you image what his fee would be if he was required to know about your family history, your medical history, and every other detail of your personal life. No all he asks you for are basic details to enable him to meet your current need.

When you form a relationship with your family doctor, he/she will build up a history over time about you and this is perfectly acceptable to the Australian Government.

When you form a relationship with your financial adviser, he/she should be able to build a history over time about you and this should be acceptable to the Australian Government in the same way.

Our client's should control want they want from us and the Australian Government, should only set out basic standards. It is not their role to dictate advice, this should be at the discretion of our client.

OK I am onboard – How do I sign this petition?

Click on the link below

e-petitions – Parliament of Australia

Scroll to the bottom of the page and select “Sign this petition”

Enter you first name, your surname, your email address & confirm email address

Then tick the box to agree with the terms and conditions

You will then receive an email to your email address and all you need to do is to verify your signature.

Next and most importantly

Ask your family and friends to do the same thing and sign our petition, because numbers count, and we need as many people as possible to sign and get our message across to our government.

William @ Price Financial Intelligence