At this year's Conference of Major Superannuation Funds (CMSF), FPA chief executive Jo-Anne Bloch called on the superannuation industry to join financial planners in providing a united approach to delivering advice.

At the same conference, SuperRatings managing director Jeff Bresnahan said independent financial planning firms stood to benefit if they effectively partnered with industry funds to provide advice to their members.

For some financial planning businesses, the idea of working with industry superannuation funds is problematic.

"Industry superannuation funds need to expose themselves to the same level of scrutiny as public offer funds. They need to include daily pricing and allow themselves to be rated by the independent research firms," Retirewell Financial Planning director Tony Gillett said.

Gillett said the strict regulatory environment meant more costs for financial planners. These costs prevent them from providing financial advice to people with low account balances.

"I think it would be better if the industry superannuation funds provided the advice themselves," Gillett said. This year, two industry funds announced they would provide free financial advice to their members.

In January, industry fund HESTA offered superannuation advice to its members free of charge.

This week, Sunsuper launched its Member Advice Centre, a service offering free financial advice over the telephone to its members.

Sunsuper had thought of offering advice to its members through an external financial planning firm.

"We thought of going into a partnership with an existing financial planning practice, however, we decided to retain our in-house financial planners," Sunsuper member advice manager Steven Travis said.

For Travis, the Member Advice Centre can now provide Sunsuper members with advice tailored to their needs.

"Our members can have bite-sized pieces of advice or a more detailed financial plan on a fee-for-service basis," he said.
By retaining its own financial planning business, Travis said the fund had more control over the culture of the business.

"We've had our financial advice business for six years and as such we have managed to build our own intellectual capital. We also wanted to maintain the fund's culture with our members and ensure financial planning processes were linked with the other parts of the business," he said.