The Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology, Jane Hume, has highlighted the importance of scaled advice in getting the industry “back off life support” after the pandemic and urged ASIC to be more proactive in rolling out fintech solutions that reduce red tape for advisers.
Speaking in a link-up with Conexus Financial chief executive Colin Tate at the Professional Planner Digital Licensee Summit this morning, Hume said the entire financial services industry needs to do things “differently”.
“We’ve got to reduce the burden of red tape, improve productivity and lift the output per worker while maintaining the quality of the output,’ Hume said. “That’s going to mean a far more prominent role for single-issue advice.”
The minister highlighted ASIC’s April regulatory amendment allowing advisers to provide advice on early access to super under records of advice (ROA) as an example of the type of low cost, low compliance advice the industry should be looking to provide.
Continuing the theme, Hume spoke of the government’s desire to embed ROAs more heavily into the advice process at the expense of lengthier and more expensive statements of advice, much of which she called “boilerplate”.
“There’s probably greater roles for ROAs and we’ve seen that,” she said. “SOAs are potentially too large and cumbersome and they’re not read by clients, there’s better ways of doing business.”
