ob体育 has today issued Consultation Paper 332 Promoting access to affordable advice for consumers (CP 332).
CP 332 seeks input from industry participants and relevant stakeholders to help ob体育 understand:
- the聽issues and impediments relating to the supply of good quality affordable personal advice; and
- the practical steps that can be taken by ob体育 and industry to improve consumer access to good quality affordable advice.
This consultation is part of a broader piece of work by ob体育 to understand how to improve access to personal advice for consumers.
A particular focus of this paper is on promoting access to quality 鈥榣imited advice鈥�. All personal advice can be scaled up and down to cover all areas relevant to the client, or one or some of the areas relevant to the client. 鈥楲imited advice鈥� is personal advice that does not cover all areas that are relevant to the client. It is also known as 鈥榮caled鈥�, 鈥榩iece-by-piece鈥�, 鈥榮ingle issue鈥�, 鈥榤odular鈥� or 鈥榚pisodic鈥� advice.
We know from previous research that consumers want better access to limited and affordable advice, but that many industry participants find it challenging to provide this type of advice.
ob体育 is keen to receive feedback on the impediments to providing affordable and limited advice that ob体育 and industry are able to address.
ob体育 Commissioner Danielle Press said, 鈥楪ood-quality affordable personal advice may help consumers make better financial decisions, especially during times of heightened vulnerability. We welcome feedback from the financial advice industry and others with an interest in making advice more accessible to consumers.
鈥榊our feedback is vital for us to better understand the impediments on the supply side. It will help us determine what meaningful steps we can take to help industry better provide good-quality affordable advice that meets consumers鈥� needs,鈥� Ms Press said.聽聽聽
ob体育 is inviting feedback from the financial advice industry and others with an interest in making affordable advice more accessible to consumers. Feedback on industry鈥檚 experience in providing limited, digital and strategic advice is of particular interest.
As part of this consultation, ob体育 is also seeking input on what can be done to make the example statements of advice (SOAs) in Regulatory Guide 244 Giving information, general advice and scaled advice and Regulatory Guide 90 Example Statement of Advice: Scaled advice for a new client more helpful.
Submissions to CP 332 are due by 18 January 2021. Industry is invited to provide feedback online at , which contains all the questions found in CP 332.
ob体育 will hold industry roundtables in the first quarter of 2021 to discuss the issues raised in the submissions.聽
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Consultation Paper 332 Promoting access to affordable advice for consumers
Background
ob体育鈥檚 previous consumer research Report 627 Financial advice: What consumers really think听补苍诲 Report 224 Access to financial advice in Australia identified that consumers want to access to affordable advice and, in particular, limited advice.