CEO Update

The consultation on education standards concluded in September 2022 with no further communication from the government. We appreciate that there may be some lessening of the requirements to acknowledge experience for existing advisers with a clean record.

If you have yet to complete an approved graduate diploma, and especially if you still have 4 or more units to complete, we encourage you to think carefully about your plan to meet these requirements. If you are relying on this exemption, this poses significant risk to you. Under the current legislation, you must hold this qualification if you wish to provide personal advice after 1/1/2026.

If you are unsure of your education pathway or would like some assistance sourcing your education, please reach out to [email protected] so we can assist.

We have completed a review on the XPLAN Data Management and Storage Policy. This review has seen the following changes implemented:

• Policy has been reformatted into new style
• Added requirements around storing encrypted files in XPLAN
• We have more clearly separated mandated and non-mandated File Type and Sub Types.
• We have also created a separate list where there is a desire to adopt best practice file naming for all files in XPLAN. This document can be found Implementation Tools as a separate guide (Appendix 2A – Full Listing of XPLAN File Note Type & Subtypes)

If you have any questions, please reach out to [email protected].

With the increased focus on cyber security and the protection of client data, some advisers have started to encrypt (password protect) documents sent by email and we appreciate your initiative.

This process entails sending an email which attaches the password protected document to the client. The password is then sent to the client using alternative messaging services (e.g., text or phone call). The challenge then comes when the document is saved in XPLAN as a password protected email attachment. This is great to show a document has been delivered, but it fails to meet the requirements of the law if we are unable to access information in a timely manner and compromises our ability to effectively monitor and supervise.

Rather than sending confidential, personal, and sensitive information by email, consider using the XPLAN Client Portal. This means the content does not leave our secure site, the client has access, and your documents are saved in XPLAN in line with requirements.

If you wish to store encrypted files in XPLAN, the password to be used must be the XPLAN client ID (where you are the originator of the encryption).

Using a common (internally known) password ensures that all current and future users of XPLAN always have access to encrypted versions of all documents.

The Advice Practitioner Summit is on again this year on the 8th February – “Unleash Your Planning Potential”.

We are pleased to offer Fitzpatricks Advisers a special offer. If you are interested in attending, please use code JULIA75. Please click here for more details of the event and the registration.

Practices are often looking for guidance on how to keep staff and clients safe, whilst continuing to operate as a business during an emergency or disaster.

In the current environment, it is important for practices to keep abreast of business emergencies and consider some of the following:

1. How to communicate with staff and ensure they are safe when an incident occurs?
2. What business processes are needed to ensure the business operations are maintained?
3. What technology systems, including cyber-security do you need to keep your business and clients safe?

All of the above could apply to a technology failure, a building disaster, principal dependency and a pandemic.

Over the coming months, we will provide you with a Business Continuity Template, appropriate for your business to help get you started.

Please start to consider what you need to do to keep your staff and business safe for such an event in future.

This will be your individual, Business Continuity Plan and we ask that these are completed on or before 15 June 2023.

Are you interested in joining a study group to complete your Ethics Course?

The Fitzpatricks deadline of December 2024 to complete this course draws nearer and several advisers have asked if they can join a study group to help them get through.

Time, location, and frequency of these sessions will be managed by the groups directly. If this is something you are interested in, please email [email protected] by 28th Feb 2023.

As part of the Look and Feel improvements, we worked with Opex to enhance the Comprehensive Fact Find. Given the time and effort that was required to make these changes, the initial focus was on enhancing the Review Fact Find, incorporating the ability to generate variations of this document (i.e. blank/update/view). Opex has now released an updated version of the Comprehensive Fact find (Opex Suite) as part of the Opex quarterly update and integrated the enhancements into this wizard/template.

• Opex Suite | Enter client data – significant uplift across the templates and wizards so all questionnaires now have the same logic applied;
  • Wizard revamped into our standard Suite ‘look and feel’ – and now only displays pages for the content options you have selected
  • Fact Find now has the same functionality and layout as the Review Questionnaire and can be generated in blank, update or view mode.
  • All remaining content options in the Fact Find are now available in the Review Questionnaire including underwriting, personal and business risk needs analysis, key dates and disclosures, general & health insurance and more – so now both documents have the same content options.
  • Underwriting and risk needs analysis and key dates & disclosures is now available for inclusion in the New Client questionnaire.
• Strategy text & flyers – updates for Centrelink and legislation rates and thresholds and text improvements

For more details in relation to the Opex quarterly updates, please click here.

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)