Matthew Brannelly – SMSF Continue to Shun Planners
I recently came across some interesting commentary regarding the changing balance between financial planners and accountants. Speaking at the launch of the Vanguard and Investment Trends 2015 Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) Report, based on a survey of almost 4,000 SMSF trustees and 501 financial advisers, Investment Trends’ head of research,
Recep III Peker, said that fewer SMSF trustees are intending to approach financial planners and other guides for investment advice. The proportion of SMSF trustees with unmet advice needs intending to approach planners and other guides such as specialist super consultants have fallen from 70 percent in 2014 down to 54 percent this year.
The proportion of SMSF trustees turning to accountants providing tax advice and accountants providing investment advice, on the other hand, has increased from 50 percent to 52 percent. The survey results also indicated that the proportion of SMSFs using a financial planner declined again, from 41 percent in 2014 to 36 percent this year.
Mr. Peker said the main areas of unmet advice needs that SMSFs were willing to pay for were typically in strategy-related areas such as inheritance and estate planning, SMSF pension strategies, age pension, offshore investing and asset protection. The interesting thing about the results, he said, is that accountants do not traditionally provide advice in these types of areas.
“The area that more accountants provide advice on than financial advisers is tax planning, and you would expect that, but all the other areas financial advisers really stand out on, especially things like advice on ETFs, investing for regular income, retirement income product selection and protecting assets and income against market falls,� he said.
To be able to meet this growing demand for these ancillary services, accountants have the choice to either ignore them (and risk clients moving elsewhere), partner with other experts (eg planners, lawyers) or my preferred option is to take a LEAD ADVISOR role and coordinate the delivery of these potentially new key services which may become commonplace in the advice firm of the future.
Matthew Brannelly works with accountants to create and deliver LEAD ADVISOR capabilities to firms seeking to play a more significant role in helping their clients.
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