An industry consultant has advised practitioners to act now on legislation and regulatory changes that are yet to be finalised in order to position their organisations in the most optimal manner for the coming years.
“It doesn’t matter whether or not we know exactly how [new industry legislation and regulations] are going to land today to start planning for our businesses [as to] how we deliver advice [in the future],” Marshan Consulting director Ben Marshan told attendees at the SMSF Association National Conference 2025 in Melbourne today.
To illustrate his point, Marshan used one of the new advice document obligations contained in the anticipated Tranche 2 of the government’s Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) legislation.
Here he noted the existing statement of advice (SOA) requirements outlined in sections 947A, 947B, 947C and 947D of the Corporations Act.
Under the act, the title “Statement of Advice” must be used on the cover of or near the front of an SOA, it must set out the advice, it must contain information about the basis of the advice, if must disclose details of who provided the advice, it must inform the client of the remuneration involved, divulge any interests involved, and include warnings and replacement product disclosure if necessary.
In comparison, the proposed new advice document under Tranche 2 of the DBFO measures must detail the subject matter or scope of the advice, the advice itself, the reasons the advice was provided and the cost of the advice to the client and/or the benefits the practitioner will receive from providing the service.
“When we think about it, how different is [the list of the new advice document] to the [obligations of the Corporations Act]? It’s not really different at all is it,” Marshan noted.
“And so if we’re waiting for the Quality of Advice Review and waiting for the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes legislation, if we’re waiting for regulators to start interpreting it, if we’re waiting for licensees to come in and tell us how we go about providing this new advice document, number one, we’ll be waiting for a really long time and number two, it’s going to end up exactly the same because there is not a lot of difference between the two things.”
As such, he reiterated financial advisers should start to act now and incorporate them in how they service clients because the new requirements will definitely be introduced and there is no benefit in not doing so.
