November Update - US Study Tour

Hi guys, just wanted to do a quick update as I have been a bit quiet on the newsletter and Facebook fronts lately and I usually put a newsletter out monthly.

Have been to conferences in the US which were great and will probably go again to Fincon next year. They have a largely unregulated financial advice profession – I’d refer to it as the wild west – no advice documents, not much in the way of proving what advice was given, just an email is good enough. They are using our industry as a model to what the future looks like and it was good to see what we do well. They even use the avocado toast analogy for housing affordability taken from our own Bernard Salt. This confuses the Americans though as Avocados are one of few things cheap there.

Now Fincon is about “where money and media meet”. So what I learned is that I need to start a podcast. So as I do I get carried away and have set up a small studio and will start to interview small business owners about the what the why and the how of what they do. Learned some video tips as well, even though this is just being filmed on my webcam so I am clearly ignoring those. So for the small business owners out there, maybe we will talk in the new year.

Also have some great ideas around the future of the business and will be making some innovations over the coming months to really bring together a stronger value proposition for current and future clients.

I sent out a bunch of review letters in September and have been in contact with some of you, and I apologise to those who I haven’t, and to be honest its because I haven’t had the time lately and I will explain the reasons for this, and it is largely coming from the Royal Commission.

I am starting what most advisers will have to completed and is called the “lookback”, and it is basically a review of fee for service to make sure what was promised has been delivered. I am quietly confident this is the case, although I am not sure how this will impact the very basic ongoing service agreements as I am informed AMP would rather just refund these than review them due to cost of reviewing so that could be a refund for some of you, but don’t hold me to that at this point. And to clarify if this does occur, it’s not because I haven’t done what was promised either.

I also have to submit advice for ‘vetting’ to ensure the quality of advice, which is slowing down the review process for many clients as it is nearly 3 weeks in queue before that team even look at it.

There are some new standards coming to effect from next year around a code of conduct and ethics. This is proving to be challenging, some industry experts have described them as unworkable, and while I think it is a good thing overall, there will be some new hurdles.

There is a 3 hour exam around ethics all advisers have to sit in the next 12 months, I’m thinking the December round I might have a go at if I get some time to study.

Now if that isn’t enough distractions I am also investigating the changing of dealer groups from AMP to someone who isn’t aligned to any products, funds, insurance, or loans. This is because even though I try and be product agnostic, ultimately some products I have wanted to use haven’t been approved by their Research team, and I also feel that the separation of product and advice will be more important in the future and I want to make sure any advice given is perceived to be impartial.

Through discussions over the years many of you were genuinely surprised I don’t get kickbacks from AMP and that I was paying them for doing my compliance. I have also been referred to as the AMP guy on the off occasion, and that is not who I want to be, particularly with their current community standing. I will still be able to use their products and MyNorth is quite cost effective since its price drop earlier this year so from your end if this happens, there won’t be any noticeable change, hopefully just an improved in perceived trust from new clients.

As always I am available to answer any questions and just to have a chat, I’ll be doing late appointments and also online appointments as if wanted using zoom which I’m recording on now and I love these backgrounds – clever tech. With the green screen here hiding the rest of the office and any mess. This will be right up and and maybe even through the Christmas period as I had holidays recently anyway. If you want to catch up – please give me a call.

Despite all this I am excited for the future and for financial planning to become a true profession, with increased trust and slowly getting rid of the few bad apples that are left. There are some exciting changes ahead which I feel will be great for all of us and I look forward to speaking with you again over the coming months.