Updates
Dear FPW Adviser Community,
Happy New Year to you all and I trust that each of you had a good restful break and enjoyed the time with your loved ones. It’s hard to believe that we are already at the end of January!
As mentioned at the end of last year, we have now established the Interim National Firm Board. Jodie, who is the Chair of the Interim National Firm Board, will be communicating with you monthly on all things National Firm. Please look out for that monthly comms that should be read in conjunction with this one. I will continue to communicate with you as the representative of “Services Co” and will focus on all the progress we will be making over the next 12 months as we transition to the National Firm.
You might remember at the last Adviser Days that I talked about Traction and how important it is to bring discipline and accountability into the organisation and also to become great at its execution… it’s where the vision starts to become real. Well, we are off and running with a jam packed first quarter. We have an exciting few months ahead. We have our first round of Adviser Days for the year coming up in March and are in the final stages of some of our big projects. These include the launch of our new Adviser Portal (which will include the refreshed Lead Adviser program) and we are also commencing work on the brand refresh and the Fitzpatricks website.
I am really looking forward to an exciting year of transformation and change, where we get closer to the National Firm vision. The team and I are looking forward to doing this work with you as we set up the National Firm working committees over the coming weeks and months.
ADVISER COMMUNITY NEWS
In this edition we turn the community spotlight on Sharon Greber, part of the team at Fitzpatricks Private Wealth WA.
Q: How long have you been at Fitzpatricks Private Wealth WA Pty Ltd?
I joined 4.5 years ago. One of the business owners exited, which allowed the Senior Advisers to buy Equity. I attended Lead Adviser with Trish and David, and quickly felt at ease with the ethos and the leadership of the group. We met with the Fitz team in Sydney and felt there was a strong alignment with morals and values, and I have yet to look back, even to the extent that for a long time, I was waiting for that non-authenticity to appear, not with this group. Fitz had to build trust with us, as we do for clients; hand in heart, we have blossomed, and Fitz has been everything and more – an incredible business partner.
Q: Why did you enter the financial services industry, and how long ago?
Born in Cairns, Queensland, and raised and educated in Perth. Post university, I moved to Kalgoorlie, home of the mining Superpit!
Culture, lifestyle, and pace were chalk and cheese for a girl from beautiful Perth to a red-earthed mining town with intense heat. I wouldn’t say I fell in love with Kal and moved away to Queensland.
An unexpected opportunity arose in 1996 to move back to Kalgoorlie. Being a seeker of possibilities, I chose “courage”. I had nothing to lose, so I packed my bag with a promise to the then owner of Godfrey Pembroke, Kalgoorlie, and committed to making advising clients my career calling.
I still love it and am super proud of my journey so far. I cherish the wonderful people and implore Kalgoorlie’s strong sense of community.
My client service triangle spans from Kalgoorlie to Esperance to Perth and back. Many kilometres!
Q: What has been your best life experience so far?
Of course, that must be my two boys, Liam (14) and Finn (11). It’s just “me and the boys”, no family in Kal, but it has given us opportunities and adventures that most kids would never have experienced. My children are super active, and my priority is to be super active in their lives. I am a full-time mum, and at times, it’s tough, and as hard as it is, I am committed to joining the dots, which I’m proud of.
Kalgoorlie allows me to do this, and we have a “great” life. “They fill my love bucket,” and still think I’m a super cool mum!
Q: What do you want to do when you grow up?
From a career perspective, I want to hit our growth target in our strategic plan and to foster and give the team we are growing career opportunities.
I’m driven to make a difference in my community and our client’s lives.
We want to live closer to the water, as our closest ocean is 400km south… Esperance. The water is too cold, and there are way too many sharks there. We want to live 30kms from the water and to achieve this next year; the plan is that every school holiday, Liam, Finn, and I will spend our time about 15 mins from Safety Bay, a lovely coastal town just south of Perth. My parents live there, and it is important to us that we are close to them.
Q: When have you felt you have enriched a client’s life?
I had a Irish Pharmacist, a “salt of the earth” kind of client.
Having only one child and her husband already passed away, her biggest fear was that somebody would control and manipulate her son’s inheritance. She asked me to care for him and promise to look after him. It is a promise from me to her for life.
With a two person team, Elise and I, we have educated and guided her son to make intelligent, financially solid decisions. We regularly share, “Pete, your mum would be so proud of you”. He has learnt not to be influenced by others financially, and now and then falls off the cliff, only to climb back up and reset.
Q: Would you like to share a monumental change you know was right?
In 1996, moving back to Kalgoorlie solo, there was no family in a tough town that was “rough and rugged”. In my heart of hearts, I knew it was the right decision, and it was.
Frankly, I lived a very cushy life with much love from my parents. Kalgoorlie is a lot more sophisticated than what it was in 1996. The “super pit” and a pub on every corner were the old; now, there’s an enormous push as a liveability hub for families. It’s a fantastic place to raise a family and to be involved in a regional community.
Q: Have you done your 10/3/NOW
I have and have some very introspective plans.
I want to be closer to my parents, sister, and brother. I want to kayak!!!
When I went to Uni, I had all these opportunities and moved to a city without water around it…. I grew up on the water, an enormous contrast. Eventually, our family will be back near the water. That’s our journey.
Technical & Compliance
Approved Product List
Policy refresh
Policies which have been refreshed include the following:
Investment Advice – SMSF – we have removed the requirement to have clients attest their understanding of the impact of low SMSF balances (under $500k). This is in accordance with ASIC moving their concerns to balances less than $250k. Associated implementation tools have been updated. Please ensure you use current material.
Client Engagement Fee Disclosure and Content Policy – This policy and associated material has been updated to reflect the change in contract wording which means service agreements for joint individuals will no longer cease on the death of one of these individuals.
Outsource Panel and Technology APL
New providers have been added to the list of approved outsource/technology as follows:
- Paraplanning – Steve Faulkner
- My Prosperity in particular their client portal along with their digital signature solution OneSpan.
Details can be found here.
2024 Cyber Readiness Survey
Business principals should be prepared to complete the 2024 Cyber Readiness Survey once received in February 2024. Using learnings from last survey we will endeavour to simplify this as much as possible. Please let us know asap if you have any questions.
Complaints
~ “An expression of dissatisfaction with an explicit or implicit expectation that the adviser/advice business will take some action”
From time to time, reading client files, we come across communication that indicates we may not be meeting our responsibilities in this space. ALL complaints (defined above) MUST be reported and managed in accordance with the FPW Complaints policy. This is a requirement of the legislation, our membership with AFCA and our license conditions.
Changes to reporting for complaints form 2024 means that ASIC is collecting raw data from all AFSLs regarding their internal complaints resolution process. With such a low bar to the definition of a complaint, please ensure that you are not overlooking these matters. Even if resolved in the same day, they must still be reported. Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions.
Technology & Operations
Got a good technology idea?
Go ahead and submit your good advice technology ideas here. Your idea might be an improvement to our existing technology solutions, e.g., XPLAN, or exploring new technologies. Your idea will then be assessed by the Advice Technology Committee – a representative group of your peers who work with the FPW team to prioritise, design, test, and support the rollout of advice technology opportunities.
Where to go for XPLAN help
Just a reminder that you can contact the Opex Helpdesk for all your XPLAN queries:
- Call the Opex Helpdesk on 1300 131 152 (9am – 5pm EST)
- Login to Opex’s Helpdesk Portal https://opex.zendesk.com
- Email the Opex Helpdesk at [email protected]
If you need any help with any of the FPW Advice Process threads, you can also contact the Opex Helpdesk who will forward your query to Siva Mehta.
And finally, don’t forget the FPW Xplan training guide is a great resource for understanding the various training solutions available to you.
Community Update
Practice Efficiencies: Keeping you and your team informed and aligned.
The CEO update is a great tool to provide important information that is essential to your business success.
Consider appointing a rotational team leader to review this update to deliver important information, such as policy changes, event dates and community connection at your weekly team meetings.
This way you can ensure everyone is well-informed, deadlines don’t creep up and there is a collective effort to drive the practice forward.
For our smaller practices, if time is a factor and there is simply too much reading material in your inbox, consider a monthly mini group “chat” with a like-minded colleague(s) using Microsoft Teams through “Coco” – it’s another great way to connect with your community peers and keep up with important information. Marnie will keep this on the radar each month, and please reach out if you would like to be connected with other peers.
National Firm People & Culture Committee
We would like to extend a thank you to Bobbe Duncombe (Chair) and the People and Culture Committee (P&C) for volunteering as members for 2024.
The P&C committee’s purpose is to seek your input and influence the Events Calendar for 2024. This includes supporting recommendations for the upcoming 2024 Conference.
National Conference
We are delighted to announce this year’s annual conference will be held in Sydney. Please save the dates for the week 14–18 October.
We would also like to thank everyone for their input in the Conference survey.
DBA users “think tank” using COCO
Don’t forget to get on board with the DBA users “think tank” led by Belinda Kennedy of Rothgard.
You can simply reach out via COCO in Teams, all you need to do is notify the group of your interest via Microsoft Teams and select the “Practice Administration” tab by following this link.
Business Continuity Plans
It is the best time of the year to review your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) as part of your Business Planning cycle, remembering that the BCP provides an outline of your disaster recovery procedures for you, your team, directors and business owners.
The BCP main objective is to ensure you can resume key business operations within an acceptable time-period and thereby limiting the impact of a disaster incident on the business’ operations with respect to its clients, your team and management of day-to-day operations.
Marnie will be in contact over the coming weeks to arrange a time to review your BCP.
Adviser Day
Adviser Days will be held nationally in March so please keep an eye out for the registration email coming in early February. Until then, remember to save the date:
- Perth – Thursday 14 March
- Brisbane – Tuesday 19 March
- Sydney – Thursday 21 March
Adviser Services
Staff changes reminder
Please ensure that all changes to your staff are notified to Advice Operations & Compliance ([email protected]). Failure to do this can result in confusion for the support team and can mean that these staff are not included in key communications which are important to the efficiency of both of our businesses.
FAAA member discounts
As a reminder, the FAAA offers several discounts with postgraduate education providers. To view the list of providers click here.
ASIC registration
If you would like to check your registration status with ASIC, simply look up your adviser record on the Financial Advisers Register. There is a new field in the first section of your record, “Registration status”.
Marketing
New year & new projects
The start of the year is always an exciting time as we start to plan all the marketing activities for the year ahead. With the transition to the National Firm, it looks like a very busy year with the upcoming launch of the new adviser portal, refreshing the brand, the new website and the conference later in the year. I look forward to sharing more details of these with you over the coming months.
