CEO Update

The Fitzpatricks Community is wider than just the advisers and staff. We also care about the families that are connected to this group. Therefore, we would like to do a shout out this month to Conlie’s son, Ari, who has been invited to join the Perth Redbacks WABL U12 basketball team. This is a real honour as it is the top team in the Perth District for his age group.

We would also like to reach out to our community for support as Ari is now on a new mission to raise $2,000 to purchase uniforms, bags, and sporting equipment for his team.

The Perth Redbacks are passionate about ensuring all members fulfill their potential through a great basketball experience. They believe that team sports are a metaphor for life. Players that reach their potential in basketball are equally prepared to live their best life outside of the sport.

The Redback’s jerseys designed by reknowned indigenous artist Phillip Wally-Stack reflect their five values: Family, Community, Respect, Transparency and Process/Equity/Fairness. The web illustrates the lines that tie the club together. Not only the families but also the life connections you make when you are part of a sporting club.

We would like to invite you to join Fitzpatricks in supporting Ari and his team this week by donating to this worthy cause. The cut-off for the equipment order is Friday 3rd March. To help Ari reach his goal to raise $2,000, please contact Conlie directly to pledge your support.

As we move closer to the deadline for the completion of education requirements brought about during FASEA, it is important to keep abreast of how we are tracking as a group. With just under 3 years to go we have 13% of our population who will need to successfully complete almost 1 unit per semester and in some cases, almost 2 units per semester to achieve the required education standards. Please consider building a buffer into your study plan just in case a resit is required before this drop-dead date.

Although there is the potential for some recognition of prior experience, this is not certain. Regardless of this, you should ask yourself if grandfathering supports your professional financial services business brand in tomorrow’s market.

Our records show 25 of you have yet to complete Ethics as part of your bridging course and a further 18 can choose to do this as part of your qualifications. They say a problem shared is a problem halved and we would love to arrange a study group if that is something you might like to be part of.

Please reach out to Marnie or Elaine if you are looking for support through a study group and Nikita if you have any questions or are seeking other support.

This policy has been refreshed for 2023 and sets out how FPW meets its responsibilities to monitor and supervise its activities and those of our representatives. If you don’t have the time to read the entire policy, at least ensure you take the item to review the key changes set out in our short video below.

In November 2022 we introduced a requirement for you to document the due diligence you undertake when seeking to appoint a referral partner as part of your Best of Breed Team. The importance of having a support network that is fit for purpose and free of conflicts is an important part of your personal responsibilities as financial advisers. As a professional, it’s important that those you surround yourself with are providers and specialists who both support and enhance your professionalism. To this end, we have provided a means for you to collect information to evidence your diligence when selecting your best of breed partners. This requirement will commence to be audited from 1 July 2023. If you haven’t already done so, please take some time to review the requirements so this will be taken care of before we commence to review this requirement.

We recognise that a National Private Wealth Firm needs appropriate tools to educate and support its Investment Philosophy, i.e. Risk Targeted Approach. To this end, we have been looking at the role Jacobi plays.

A recent review shows a wide divergence in how individuals are using Jacobi. We would like to make disclosures simpler, clearer and more relevant to the use of the diagrams and document inserts. We would like to consider how the various tools are best used in the advice/service process to develop a consistent process to keep everyone safe.

Jacobi itself has developed from the version we currently use and potentially offers functionality which may be used to enhance and better protect users from oversights or errors which may compromise the output.

Jacobi has access a wide range of assumptions which underpin the projections created to support the conversation as to why an RTA approach has merit. The tool uses rich data embedded in the Atrium products, which means we can model the response of Atrium to a particular market event. When we compare this to a typical (passive) SAA account we can see how the active management improves the client experience. Projections using this data can be forward looking or backward looking (Stress Test).

If we compare this to a particular product for which we don’t have this same level of rich data, we run the risk of potentially leaving clients with the impression the comparison is like for like.

FPW has decided to pause the use of Jacobi until we can better understand how it fits our advice process, how it’s usage should be documented and recorded to ensure that we are able to properly meet our responsibilities.

During this pause, our intent is to:
1. complete a review of the past use of Jacobi as a matter of priority
2. work with key advocates to understand the needs of the National Firm
3. ensure appropriate safeguards are implemented in any future use of Jacobi
4. decide how best to support the explanation and education of our risk targeted Investment Philosophy.

Work is well under way for items 1 and 2 above, and we will commence work on items 3 and 4 shortly. Our intent is to move through the review asap.

Please reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.

The ASIC Supervisory levy invoice has been received from ASIC in relation to all authorised representatives registered as of 30 June 2022. This year the ASIC levy has remained the same as last year, $1,142 per adviser plus GST. Note, this fee is not relevant to you if were authorised through a different AFSL on this date, i.e. if you are new to the Fitzpatricks Group. This year the cost will be split in three equal deductions commencing March to May, deducted in the mid-month payment runs. Should you prefer to have the full fee deducted in March please send an email to the [email protected] inbox by no later than the 8th of March to nominate your request.

Did you know that all Fitzpatricks practices have access to industry leading cyber awareness training (KnowBe4) at no additional cost? Existing KnowBe4 users can now access the training via a mobile app. Click here for more details.

We are currently working with a few members of our community to select and rollout a client portal that enables practices to securely and efficiently share documents with their clients. This will involve shortlisting and assessing alternatives and selecting the appropriate solution.

We’re endeavouring to launch the selected client portal by the end of March so please get in touch with Siva ([email protected]) with any ideas you might have here.

To improve the security of your Xplan account we are changing the minimum requirements for your password on Monday 13 March 2023. This, in addition to the upgraded MFA requirements recently implemented, will greatly enhance your account security.

With the computing power available to bad actors today, a short simple password is not enough to protect your account and data. The table below gives you an indication of how long it would take a hacker to brute force (entering many passwords or passphrases in the hope of eventually guessing correctly). As you can see, using an 8-character password (even with numbers, upper and lowercase letters, and symbols) would only take 39 minutes to break!

To combat this, we are updating our Xplan password requirements to the following:

Password minimum length: 12
Password History: The last 2 passwords are remembered
Password Age: 180 days (you will be asked to change twice a year)

A custom-built wizard to generate the Direct Debit request form in Xplan is now available for you to use. This wizard can be located under FPW Process Wizards > Service the client > Direct Debit Request Form Wizard.

From Monday 13 March 2023, you’ll be able to restrict your DBA CSO’s (‘Adhoc’) Xplan access to just the clients they’re working on rather than having access to your full client list (similar to the paraplanning service). Please find attached the user guide to help you set this up.

The Approved Product List (APL) has recently been enhanced with the inclusion of Lonsec’s Sustainability Score for all products where this is available. A complex quantitative process is undertaken by Lonsec to determine the Sustainability Score and it therefore can provide a useful first step for identifying quality products with a strong focus on Sustainability.

Lonsec’s methodology for producing the Sustainability Score is relatively complex but it aims to ascertain the overall “net goodness” in a portfolio by analysing how the constituent companies in a portfolio positively support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while also measuring the portfolios negative impact of exposures to controversial industries (10 industries including fossil fuels, gambling, alcohol, tobacco and deforestation etc.). Lonsec has partnered with a data provider, ‘Sustainable Platform’ for the company level data required in the process. The scoring process is peer relative so a product that scores a 5 Sustainability Score is in the top 10% of all Lonsec rated funds in that category.

In addition to a Sustainability Score, Lonsec also produce a Sustainability Report for each product they ‘score’. The Sustainability Score is not a product rating and should be read in conjunction with the product rating from Lonsec (Investment Grade, Recommended, Highly Recommended etc.). The Sustainability Report and Product Rating reports are only available to Lonsec subscribers.

It is important to note that the Sustainability Score is not an ESG negative screen but Lonsec do include information about the most common industry exclusions in a product (as provided by the fund manager). These exclusions do not contribute to the score.

Lonsec also research and rate Responsible Investment and ESG products and compile a sector review for these specialist products. The research reports and sector review are also available to Lonsec subscribers.

Enrolments are now open for Study Period 2.

Further information – Key dates for Study Period 2:
– Early access to subject room and learning materials – Now
– Early access to assessments – 20 February
– Study period commences – 6 March
– Enrolments close – 22 March
– Study period ends – 26 May

To enrol visit Postgraduate online enrolment | Kaplan Professional.

Coming up in March we have our Adviser Day event which will be held across a number of states. The dates for these are below:

Wednesday 15 March – Melbourne
Tuesday 21 March – Sydney
Thursday 23 March – Brisbane
Tuesday 28 March – Perth
Wednesday 5 April – Adviser and Support Technical Session (Virtual)