Updates
Dear FPW Adviser Community,
At the time of writing, we have just finished the Brisbane and Sydney Adviser Days and are about to head over to WA. As always, it is great to reconnect, chat and reflect on the year as we rapidly head towards the end of it.
Our year has been very busy, filled with planning, executing and completing projects, all of which will help us move towards the National Firm. When I reflect on the progress made, I think it has been significant.
• We have made major progress on work to identify our ideal client and the services we deliver to those clients.
• We have learnt how to price our services appropriately to those clients (you will recall the master classes that John conducted a couple of months ago).
• We have worked on our Client Value Propositions. At the Adviser Days, John Woodley stressed the importance of mastering how you articulate that value so that you can deliver it authentically to your network of professionals that you work with when asking for introductions.
• We have made significant progress on populating our National Firm Charter. This charter has been signed by all firms that attended our inaugural National Firm Partners Meeting in Osaka, Japan. The Charter is held at our Sydney office and by signing it, you demonstrate the intent to be involved in and to contribute to the National Firm.
At the Adviser Days I put up our 2024 roadmap. I hope you will agree that there is a lot of value that has been built and that is being built. The call out for me is all the work that has been done on the Lead Adviser program refresh. Louise and Terri who have been working on this program gave us a taste of what’s to come. It’s very exciting to see that content being built out, and how that program will cater to different learning styles. Most importantly. it demonstrates the value of the Lead Adviser program when it comes to building capability in your teams.
You may recall at my session at Adviser Day that investing in building capability in your teams is what successful professional services firms do. After all, your people are your businesses’ greatest asset. Terri also reminded us of the Wheel of Life and taught us how to use it in a variety of ways. I look forward to hearing how you are using it or are going to use it after the refresher Terri gave us.
I hope you noticed that the Adviser Day felt a little different this time around. There was a deeper focus on building capability and working together as a community so that we continue to grow together. We look forward to working with the National Firm Interim Board to explore how we continue to have these days be a valuable way to learn.
Lastly, at Adviser Day I introduced the National Firm Interim Board. This Board is there to represent the views of our community and to work with ServicesCo to understand the needs and services desired by the National Firm. I have attached a link to my presentation so that you can see those board members and the type of work they will be doing over the coming months in the various committees that we will establish.
This National Firm Interim Board will replace all other adviser groups and boards including the Guardians. I wanted to say a personal thank you to all the advisers that have been involved in the Guardians over the years. Thank you for your contribution and service to the group. I look forward to working with the National Firm Interim Board as we continue to build the National Firm together.
Only a few more weeks to go and we can all look forward to a well-earned break. Please look out for the team’s Christmas video which we will be sending out in the next few weeks.
ADVISER COMMUNITY NEWS
This month we invited Alisa Honeyman, an almost born ‘n’ bred Canberran, who lived on a hobby farm just outside of the ACT (in NSW) with her family before moving to Canberra with husband Anthony. She is speaking with us today from her getaway beach house in lovely Stanwell Park, 58 km south of Sydney’s CBD and will share wonderful insights into her life and journey to building a successful advice business.
Q: How long have you been at Fitzpatricks?
A: I have been with Fitzpatricks for 8 years now. I worked with Centric Wealth for 18 years prior to Fitzpatricks and made the decision to leave and focus on more time with my young children, holidays, and all things non-financial planning before joining Fitzpatricks in 2015.
Q: Why did you enter the financial services industry and how long ago?
A: My father passed away some 30 years ago and my Mum needed financial advice. I finished my commerce degree in 1993, and my fabulous mother developed trust and knowledge through seeking advice from a Financial Adviser. Through that engagement, Mum’s adviser learned I was a recent graduate looking for a career and I was fortunate enough to be offered an administrative role at his company. I enjoyed what I’d fallen into and started to explore what additional educational requirements I needed to give advice, commencing with the Dip. Financial Planning. I started advising early on in my new career and jumping 18 years later, I have provided valuable support to hundreds of clients, while managing to raise a family along the way. I still remain passionate about the industry and the role we play in supporting our clients to maximise their financial goals.
Q: What has been your best life experience so far?
A: My family by far. We are fortunate in so far as we remain healthy and happy and very close, which is the most important aspect of life for me. While our children are currently interstate or overseas, my husband Anthony and I still see them regularly for holidays and I have my beautiful dog Charlie at home with me, a loving 8-year-old Labradoodle.
Q: What do you want to do when you grow up?
A: For the sake of my children and husband, to see the North Melbourne football club win a premiership would be a highlight! Aside from that I want to travel more, spending time in other parts of the world with friends and family and remaining a key part of my kids’ lives.
Q: When have you felt you have enriched a client’s life?
A: One of my clients had a brain tumor, let’s just say he wasn’t the kindest of men, quite scary actually, stressed grumpy and not the best client to deal with. He had little trust in anyone and had to deal with the trauma of his own situation, but he was on a mission to find someone whom he could trust 100% to make sure his wife and son would be ok. He chose me! We spent an enormous amount of time together, planning and organising his life. He is still with us by the way and has gone from “super scary to super engaged”. I know he would follow me to the moon and back, because I made a difference to his life and his family’s life. I reflect on this client all the time.
A: Would you like to share a monumental change that you know was the right one?
Not sure I can think of a monumental change, but I do understand why I have been able to achieve what I have. I am fortunate to have an attitude to life that no matter what the situation, I need to keep going. When I was young, my older brother had started judo, so I also entered the highly disciplined world of this sport. Sometime after starting judo, I took a heavy fall off my horse and broke 4 vertebrae. I recall lying flat on my back for 4 weeks – whether that was my monumental life change or not, I fought hard mentally to get myself through the rehabilitation, so I could go back to competing in judo. Through a lot of hard work and good fortune within a few years of my return I went on to become the Australian Junior Judo Champion.
If you would like to connect with Alisa Honeyman, you can email her via [email protected].
Technical & Compliance
First instalment of QAR released – What does that mean for us?
Draft legislation was released by the government on 14th November containing the first instalment of change promised under the Quality of Advice Review. These changes seek to deliver on some of the promises including:
• FSGs delivered online
• A simplified FDS regime
• Standard consent for insurance commissions
• Removal of red tape and confusion around the payment of conflicted remuneration by super funds to financial advisers for advice paid from the member’s account.
Proposals
FSGs – advisers can choose to deliver FSGs as per current process or choose to make them available online. Online delivery will require FSGs to be current, complete, accessible and the website will need to record not only the FSG issue date but also the date the FSG was published. Clients can request a copy if required.
*FDS Regime – No more EFDS, instead it will be mandatory that the client receive an engagement agreement which contains all the information they currently receive between our current Engagement Agreement and the product provider consent, so only one form will be required. Product providers will have the option to still require their own form.
Additional requirement will be placed on fee recipients to write to clients when fee arrangements are terminated within 10 days of termination.
The renewal period (period in which a client can return their signed consent) is proposed as being 150 days rather than 120 days with no buffer (currently 10 days) to terminate fees after the 150 days has expired.
No change is proposed for Fixed Term Agreements.
* will have a 6 month transition period from commencement
Insurance Commissions – Draft proposals address a number of insurance matters as follows:
• Maintain current levels of commission and clawback (60% up front, 20% trailing and 2 year clawback)
• Written consent must be obtained before products are issued or sold to receive commission for insurance products. This consent must disclose;
….o The commission the person will receive (up front and trail as a % of premium and
….o The nature of any service the client will be entitled to as a result of the commission payment e.g. claims handling etc.
Consent will be one-off and apply for the policy duration.
Removal of red tape – payment of fees from super.
There are a raft of changes proposed for SIS and the Corporations Act to provide clarity that fees for advice in relation a members super fund paid to an AFSL or Adviser are not conflicted remuneration or a release of super benefits.
Consultation is open till 6th December.
Further focus on Cyber Security – What’s changed and how we will respond.
On the 15th of November the Australian Signals Directorate released their 2023 ASD Cyber Threat Report. It’s no surprise that the numbers are staggering.
In response the government has released their action plan for 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy. This strategy aims to make Australia the most cyber secure country. In addition, expect increasing regulation in relation to Privacy, security of information and penalties for missing the mark through 2024
FPW will launch a campaign in the new year aimed at increasing awareness for our clients, helping them understand how we keep their data safe and what simple actions they can take to keep themselves safe as well.
In the meantime, continue to follow our guidance as set out in our Cyber Security Policy especially over the Christmas and holiday period.
Cyber Review for 2024 – What do I need to know now?
Look forward to the next review of our cyber readiness in early 2024. Please be ready to respond to our survey questions which will incorporate the learning of 2023, streamlining the survey process as much as possible. We aim to release this in February 2024 so we can start the new year confident our systems and processes for cyber are sound.
Technology & Operations
Outcomes of the Advice Technology Committee
The outcome of the Advice Technology Committee’s meeting in September was that the following items were prioritised and subsequently implemented:
1. Adviser signature panel on Fact Find & Authority to Proceed – after discussions with the Advice Technology committee, it was agreed that there was no compliance requirement to have an adviser’s signature on the Fact Find and Authority to Proceed so subsequently this has now been removed from these two documents.
2. Multiple service agreements – there is a workaround in Xplan to cater for multiple service agreements that are in place at the same time. Please contact Siva Mehta if you wish to discuss this further.
3. Execution Only wizard – please note that there have been some minor updates to the Execution Only wizard. This wizard can be located under the FPW Process Wizard > Advise the Client > Execution Only Wizard. The purpose of this wizard is to provide efficiencies when instructions are provided by a client for an Execution Only transaction.
4. Fees and disclosures & Investment recs – investment costs within advice documents have been updated to include a total of ICR + Transaction Cost + Performance
5. The ‘fees and disclosures – fee summary’ option from the Construct Advice wizard and output has now been removed.
6. WealthSolver – Proposed Asset Allocation – we have built a new quick merge report under WealthSolver for the Proposed asset allocation which includes current asset allocation, proposed asset allocation, risk profile and variance.
Please contact Siva Mehta if you have any questions on any of the above.
Business Coaching & Training
Adviser Days
Thank you to everyone for registering for the November/December Adviser Days in Brisbane, Sydney, and Perth, in particular those who will have made the trek from interstate. We always welcome your feedback and ask you again this year to please take the time to complete the Adviser Day Survey to help us continue to strive to add further value to your business.
All presentations and notes from the Adviser Day will be available on the Adviser Portal not long after the sessions and if you have any questions in relation to our speakers or topics, please reach out to [email protected].
DBA users “think tank” using COCO
We have several practices that use DBA outsource services and what better way to connect with fellow users than by utilising the COCO platform. This allows you to communicate and share ideas with like-minded individuals not only with DBA but on other topics through this easy-to-use community tool.
Belinda Kennedy of Rothgard has kindly offered to get together with those interested and organise a DBA “think tank”, so please reach out to her through COCO directly OR simply email [email protected].
For those who wish to reach out via COCO in Teams, below you will find Microsoft Teams details, all you need to do is notify the group of your interest via the tab called “Practice Administration”.
Adviser Services
Brisbane Christmas Party Office Closure
Please be advised that both the Brisbane and the Sydney corporate office will be closed from 12pm on Thursday 14th of December due to our Annual Christmas Parties.
Why Data Matters
Professional Standards has access to a range of reports we are increasingly using to check our business is meeting its record keeping and other compliance responsibilities. Learn how you can use these to your advantage.
Benefits of good data include:
• Increase the value of the business
• Keep you safe ensuring record keeping responsibilities are met
• Provides confidence service delivery is met as required
• Identify opportunities to improve business efficiency
• More accurate and complete records provide confidence that all is running efficiently and effectively
Analysing data is crucial for gaining insights, revealing our habits and identifying gaps. By identifying gaps, or habits that don’t support compliance, we have an opportunity to catch any shortfalls or change our habits before a small issue becomes a bigger issue. Starting next year, we will be sharing information identified in these reports to help you build a better business and provide support to help you understand how we can keep your data clean.
Marketing
End of Year Focus
As we head towards the end of the year and start to think about holidays, I am looking forward to a big finish with the Adviser Days in November and December. At the same time, we are kicking off the Fitzpatricks brand refresh this month which will help reposition the brand for the national firm in 2024.
Research
Updates to APL and the HUB24 Fee Calculator
The HUB24 fee calculator has been updated. Please ensure you are using the latest version which can be found here.
Reminder for users of MAPS Real Asset Fund
The Wholesale and Specialist APL, available for use by wholesale advice accredited advisers only has been updated and can be accessed here.
To ensure you have good compliance documentation, don’t forget that specialist alternative funds and MAPS Real Assets funds are not approved for use without Special Approval. Please ensure you obtain these approvals before you make your recommendations.
End of Year Update
Pay run calendar 2024
To assist advisers in their budgeting, we have prepared the pay run calendar for 2024.
ASIC Levy
ASIC has now confirmed the 22/23 levy will be $2,818. This is less than the indicative levy of $3,217 on which we based our initial calculations.
In the interest of smoothing cashflow impact for your businesses, we have recalculated the deduction schedule to the below to take into account the lower levy.
| JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC | JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASIC | 563.17 | 563.17 | 436.42 | 436.42 | 436.42 | 436.40 | 2818.00 |
Please contact Steve McMeeken if you have any questions.
Christmas shut-down and Revenue Payment changes
With the Christmas period fast approaching, please be advised a few date changes that will impact you.
OFFICE CLOSURE
| Date Closed | Location and Reason |
|---|---|
| 22 December 2023 - 8 January 2024 | Brisbane and Sydney office, closed for the Christmas break. Business resumes as normal on the 8th of January 2024. |
WHEN TO EXPECT YOUR REVENUE PAYMENT AND REPORTS
| Revenue Payment Period | Revenue Paid to Advisers |
|---|---|
| 1 - 15 December 2023 | 18 December 2023 |
| 16 - 31 December 2023 | 3 January 2024 |
DIRECT DEBIT PAYMENTS – PAYWAY
Processing of payments via weekly Xplan Tasks will continue on Fridays with the exception of the below dates:
• No processing of payment tasks on Friday 22nd of December 2023.
We are moving the last processing day to be Thursday the 21st of December so we can troubleshoot errors with tasks, follow up queries and avoid payments missing this payment run. Please load your tasks for this period as soon as possible with the due date set to the THURSDAY the 21st of December 2023. Any queries not finalised by the 22nd of December will be reviewed in the new year to be processed and paid in the 16th of January 2024 payment run. Please note, if your office is closed during this period and we do not receive a response, we will await further instructions from you before processing any payments.
