ANZ Wealth has turned its focus on how to implement changes to the opt-in requirement of the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) bill as part of a number of priorities for the business.
Under the amendments, opt-in will not be required where a planner is a member of a professional body or where the advice body has an approved professional code of conduct and ASIC has excluded them from the requirement.
"My view would be there are two issues to consider. Firstly, what is the detail, does a professional code of conduct have an in-built opt-in in it anyway? So will that be a requirement? And, what will ASIC's interpretation of it be?" ANZ Wealth general manager of advice and distribution Paul Barrett said.
"So if ASIC have a view that meeting a professional code of conduct should include some form of opt-in, then what relief is there really?"
However, Barrett said putting obvious issues aside having a professional code of conduct in a profession is intuitively a good thing.
"I don't think anyone can really knock the logic of a professional code of conduct and the devil will be in the detail. So what will you have to do as a practitioner to meet the code of conduct? That needs to be worked through and I imagine ASIC will have a very strong view on that as well," he said.
"I know one thing for sure. As a business operator in this market you've got to get on with it anyway so for us we're just focusing on implementation of opt-in."
Barrett said the group will turn its attention on how to implement opt-in using a software platform.
"We have to understand what [this new announcement] means as far as our spend in that area is concerned as well. So there are a few more unknowns now," he said.
"But we are getting down do the issues around the implementing of opt-in because the stakes are really high if you get it wrong."
Outside of the FOFA reforms, ANZ Wealth is focused on expanding its financial planning business, he said.
"[We need] affordable accessible advice. So we need to grow that to enable more accessibility, we need more efficient ways of providing advice to improve affordability and that's really what we're trying to do," he said.
Improving relationships and transforming dealership services offerings will also contribute to ANZ Wealth's growth, Barrett said.
