12
FIND KNOX | SEPTEMBER 2021
findknox.com.au
Accountants No Longer Want To Provide Financial Planning Advice - It's All Too Hard And Costly ACCOUNTANT By Warren Strybosch
For many years, accountants looked down on financial planners. After all, financial planners supposedly caused all the financial crises that we have all experienced over the last 20 years, they took commissions for doing nothing, and simply sold products. Not so for accountants, who unlike the financial planners, provided a service that everyone required e.g., tax returns, and were the only ones who ever provided sound advice. I do say this with a bit of tongue in cheek, but you can be assured that is how some accountants viewed financial planners a few years back. How things are changed.
limited licenses by accountants, which reach its peak take up in 2018. In December 2018, when there was close to 29,000 financial advisors offering advice, almost nice per cent (9%) were made up of accountants.
In July 2012, the FoFA reforms were introduced. Out of the FoFA reforms was born the Ripoll Report, which examined the collapse of some big-name financial institutions Storm, Trio, Opes Prime, that resulted in many ordinary ‘mum and dad’ investors losing a lot of their money even though they were just following the advice of their financial planners, advisers and even accountants. FoFA introduced to protect consumers, and to enable ordinary consumers to obtain access to more affordable and competent financial advice. As part of the reforms the government decided that all financial advice should be afforded the same level of regulatory rigour, irrespective of who delivers that advice. That is, whether a financial planner or an accountant provides advice to a client, the client should still expect the same level of competence and protection from the law. Consequently, this meant that the accountants’ exemption relating to SMSFs had to be removed. After much debate and argument, it was decided that SMSFs are a financial product and therefore had to be included in the FoFA reforms. However, the experience of accountants was acknowledged and the government agreed to deem that accountants had relevant experience (normally this has to be proved to ASIC). This applies only to members of the Joint Accounting Bodies (JAB) (IPA, CPAA and CAANZ) with a PPC and during the transition period.
Source: AR Data
Since 2018, and after the introduction of the FASEA Code of conduct, higher education standards, a FASEA exam that all advisors had to sit, including accountants, and most importantly, the burgeoning increase in costs to be able to be able to give advice in this space, there has been a sharp decline in the number of accountants holding on to their limited licenses. Since 2019, there has been approximately 28 accountants every month handing back their limited license to ASIC which has reduce the number of accountants able to provide limited advice down to about 1300 accountants.
This was a major concession. Other concessions were also won, including the introduction of a limited license with an advice scope broader than under the exemption; and providing an annual compliance certificate instead of a full audit (which financial planners have to do).
What is interesting to note is that the cost to be able to provide advice has nearly doubled with most advisors having to now pay approximately $45,000 to their respective licensee per annum. When you add on PI, software fees, and association fees, that are mandatory to be able to provide advice, the costs can jump up to easily $60,000 per year. With financial advisors now having to pay ASIC levy fees on top of already high yearly running costs, you can understand why accountants are reluctant to stay in the game of providing financial planning advice. After all, their licence costs, including software, is easily under $5000 per annum – chalk and cheese when comparing accountant costs vs financial planning costs of running a business.
A three-year transition period was also granted, ending on 30 June 2016. Most of the FoFA reforms have not directly impacted accountants. The impact has been mostly on financial planners – including the changes around conflicted remuneration, opt-in, to name a few. It should also be remembered that the accountants’ exemption was introduced as a temporary measure during the last round of financial reforms, until a more permanent solution could be developed. However, ‘temporary’ lasted for about ten years during which time establishing SMSFs became embedded for many accountants. This was evident with a large take up of
Given, the government had formed the view that many accountants were operating in breach of the exemption, they decided they either had to have a limited license to be able to provide advice or become a fully qualified financial planner. However, after the Haynes Royal Commission and the introduction of the FASEA Code of Conduct, it was decided that anyone who wanted to provide financial planning advice, regardless of the type of license they held, needed to have the same qualifications e.g., minimum Bachelor related to financial planning and had to pass the FASEA exam. Given only 60% of those sitting the FASEA exam in August passed, it is likely we will
