In a column for this month’s ifa magazine, sister publication of InvestorDaily, Mr Bragger referred to Senator Mathias Cormann’s promise to create more certainty around scaled advice, noting that likely changes will involve removing liability risks for advice providers.
He said that this will mean “advice-based distribution” will be made easier than allowed currently under the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms.
“This will allow product distributors to sell their products via aligned advisers without assessing the entire big picture of the purchaser,” Mr Bragger said.
“It will also allow industry funds to provide a more blinkered approach to advise their members where their fund may not have all the features the client may ideally need.
“This facilitates the moving of product under the guise of ‘advice’ to continue.”
Mr Bragger said even clients with simple financial affairs still require the advice from the their planner to be “holistic in nature”.
For this reason, giving scaled advice may not be in the best interests of consumers, he said.
“Clients with simple affairs need simple low-cost advice,” Mr Bragger said. “It should, however, still be holistic.
“I would suggest, as a result, that scaling of legislation should be the first place politicians look if they truly want consumers to be better looked after.”
