Outsourcing to meet the challenges of the regulatory changes

Submitted by Assyat David on Tue, 21/06/2011 - 11:23am

The regulator focus on rapidly growing financial planning aggregators and on new training and assessment standards for financial advisers means that financial planning groups need to consider quality outsourced technical and financial planning strategy solutions.

There’s a justifiable fear that rapid acquisition activity may distract financial planning groups from their core business of servicing clients due to difficulties in ensuring that support services keep up with the size of the group and in turn compliance obligations may be breached, putting licence conditions at risk.

The increasing compliance burden is a challenge for advisory groups but also means individual advisers may need assistance to offer clients the most up-to-date information on legislative changes and relevant financial planning and technical strategies.

The regulator has also announced proposals for a new training and assessment framework for financial advisers which, if implemented, would mean all advisers may have to pass a financial services competency certification exam and undertake a Knowledge Update Review every three years on changes to laws, market issues, new products and professional development requirements

New training and assessment standards will raise the bar for financial advice, but will also place added pressure on advisory groups.

Increasing regulatory and compliance pressures and a move to fee for service are prompting advisory groups to consider an external outsourcing solution to ensure support services keep up with the needs of the group to offer timely client-focused financial planning strategies.

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.

Disclaimer

The information contained in this publication is based on the understanding Strategy Steps Pty Ltd ABN 14130045242 AFSL 333649 has of the relevant Australian legislation as at the date shown in this publication. The information contained in this publication is of a general nature only and is intended for use by financial advisers and other licensed professionals only. It must not be handed to clients for their keeping nor can any copies of sections of this publication be given to clients. Strategy Steps is not a registered tax agent under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009. We recommend that your client be referred to their registered tax agent or legal adviser prior to implementing any recommendations that you may make based on the information contained in this publication.