CEO Update

As many of you will be aware, the legislation to recognise education qualifications for experienced advisers was passed in early September. This change will mean that advisers who qualify will not be required (at law) to undertake any further education under the Professional Standards legislation (i.e. AQF7 degree or bridging courses).

The Fitzpatricks name has always been recognised in the industry as standing for excellence in terms of education, experience and professionalism. We believe that as we build to the National Firm, we should continue to live and breathe those hallmarks of professionalism which we understand will be an expectation of our ideal clients.

We are working with our partners to understand the needs of the National Firm in this respect and expect to be able to give clarity in the following months on this aspect. In the meantime, we encourage you to continue to work toward completing any education required to meet the higher Professional Standards in education as already set.

Please review if you are currently outsourcing service, administration, or technology outside those listed in the following list. If so, you will need to reapply for approval as per the Outsourcing Policy to ensure these services remain fit for purpose. The relevant list to check is: Software & Outsource Provider APL.pdf

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) recently conducted a survey of almost 2000 consumers to understand their expectations around data security and the need for businesses to manage personal information. Some interesting statistics are:

• 90% have a clear understanding of why they should protect their personal information
• After quality and price, data privacy ranks as the most important factor when choosing a product or service
• 47% said they were involved in a data breach last year
• 76% said they had experienced harm because of a data breach
• 91% are concerned about sending data offshore
• 92% said they would like businesses to do more to protect their personal information

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More information can be found in their infographic and report.

ASIC released their latest Corporate Plan at the end of August. This is broken into 4 strategic priorities and several core projects. Those we expect to directly impact us include the following:

• Breach reporting
  For the second year in a row, ASIC will not be using its power to publish names of entities that reported the most breaches, instead taking a broader, more thematic approach to its public reporting. This decision is based on its view that reporting remains inconsistent across the industry with suspicions that many matters are going unreported. We expect ASIC will focus closely on those organisations that have no breach reports or whose numbers are inconsistent with other, similar organisations. Whilst FPW does not have large numbers of breach reports, we believe our numbers are not inconsistent with others.
• Underperforming products
  This initiative is captured as part of ASICs DDO work and will initially include APL and file reviews of advice that may include trustee directed products which did not meet the benchmark performance. Please refer to the email from FAAA if you haven’t yet had a chance to review this. Impacted products are these:
  • Non-platform products, and
  • Platform products
• Establishment of SMSF
  This work flows through from ASICs continuing work on SMSF and their concern that funds continue to be set up without proper consideration. This review will also be conducted by a file review. Please refer to our policy to ensure that we continue to meet our responsibilities.
• Cyber and operational resilience
  This continues to be a high priority for ASIC and they will continue to actively supervise and engage with stakeholders to encourage prompt management of operational risks, and continuous improvement of cyber and operational resilience practices.

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.

You may have noticed that Opex have simplified the Fact Find Wizard to remove the optional fact find types from the ‘Enter client data’ wizard. This and other changes they’ve made are detailed in the August release notes but in summary:

• All content is now available via the one template and wizard – this is the same content options as previous (in fact, there’s a couple more e.g., annuities)
• The practice can change what this questionnaire document is called (new user group setting)
• Users can make this questionnaire as simple or complex as they like as all content is now available, and modes can be switched between blank, update, or view depending on what output style is required
• The custom tables built for FPW will continue to apply as per previous.

The new Online Fact Find via the XPLAN Client Portal was launched on Monday 4 September. This is a solution that was prioritised by the Advice Technology Committee. Thank you to everyone involved. Click here for a recording of the webinar and various other guides and videos.

The Execution Only Service Wizard is now live and can be located under the FPW Process Wizard > Advise the Client > Execution Only Wizard. The purpose of this wizard – again prioritised, designed, and tested by the Advice Technology Committee – is to provide efficiencies when instructions are provided by a client for an Execution Only transaction.

The Adviser Days are creeping up this year, and we would be delighted to have you join us again as we continue on our journey to building out the National Firm.

Everyone plays a pivotal role in shaping the future and guiding individuals towards success with your knowledge and skills so please mark in your calendars the following dates and over the coming weeks you will receive a registration link and Agenda items.

Online Technical Virtual Day

• Wednesday 11 October – Virtual Technical Day – Registrations will open on Thursday 21 September

In-Person Adviser Days

• Monday 27 November – Adviser Day Brisbane
• Wednesday 29 November – Adviser Day, Sydney
• Tuesday 5 December – Adviser Day, Perth

To support business cashflow, we have been able to extend the period of time to pay for the ASIC Levy and PI insurance. Please click here for more information.

We are thrilled to share that Jamie, Josh and Michael our Professional Year New Entrants have successfully passed the Financial Adviser Exam in their first sitting! We thank them for their dedication and hard work and we can’t wait to continue to watch them flourish in the rest of their PY journey.

Please register to ensure you have a placeholder for our upcoming FPW webinar. A reminder: CPD is assessed for all FPW webinars. If a webinar is deemed eligible, CPD points will automatically be added to Authorised Representatives of our Licensees who have attended 80% of the session.

A huge amount of work has gone into next week’s Conference and it looks like it is going to be a wonderful event. Well done to Sandra and everyone involved in organising it. Unfortunately I wont be there but I look forward to catching up with you afterwards to hear all about it.