To mark the milestone, we’ve dedicated our cover story to the top 10 issues that have affected Australia’s financial services industry during the past decade.
As part of the feature, we took the opportunity to engage with our readers and get their viewpoints on what they felt the top issues were since 1999.
The responses canvassed a range of topics, including investor confidence, industry funds, financial services reform, platforms, the fee debate, budget changes, the tech wreck and the election of the Rudd government.
Interestingly, despite the number of responses to the above issues, the global financial crisis (GFC) topped the list.
For many industry participants who responded with the GFC as their top issue, the reasons included the financial impact it had on the industry and the effect it had on the way advisers related to clients.
“GFC – a terrible result for investors, particularly those with retirement incomes deriving from investments,” one industry player said.
“Certainly the GFC in impact terms of effect on client funds and investor confidence going forward,” another respondent said.
While another industry participant said: “Global financial crisis, so much media the clients seem to be shell-shocked and are only just deciding to invest back in the market. I do not think that would have happened if the interest rates had not dropped so far in early ’09.”
Second on the list was financial services reform (FSR).
“FSR hands down the number one issue, let’s face it, it started the transformation of the industry from one of product floggers and insurance salesmen to one where we can generally hold our heads high and call ourselves financial professionals – FSR has done wonders to weed out a lot of questionable practices,” one industry participant said.
“Definitely FSR: it set in chain disclosure and educational standards that have accelerated progress in quality advice. These ripples are still yet to reach their fulfilment,” another participant said.
Changes to Australia’s superannuation regime came in third, while investor sentiment/investor confidence and corporate collapses rounded out fourth and fifth spot respectively.
“Consumer confidence and perceived value of advice – fuelled by the shadow shopper program, constant debate over fees versus commission, advice versus product sales, the high cost of investing, corporate collapses like Opes Prime, Westpoint, Storm and those in the agricultural sector and more recently by the GFC, as well as a constant line-up of advisers in the courts for fraud, misappropriation, theft et cetera,” one respondent said.
In the spirit of celebrating 10 years as Australia’s first weekly financial services trade publication, we have tracked down past editors of the magazine to gain their views on the issues that took precedence during their editorship.
To our readers, we thank you for staying with us for the past 10 years, and we look forward to the next decade.
