Individuals who will provide SMSF advice in a hybrid accounting and financial planning environment in the future may not be the highest-quality professionals due to a communication gap between learning institutions at all levels and the industry, according to some sector leaders.
Speaking at a SPAA Sydney chapter function late last year, Quantum Financial principal Claire McKay said the financial advice community had let itself down by not having open dialogue with universities about the type of people needed to join the SMSF advisory ranks at an entry level.
“We haven’t said to them we want problem solvers or these are the sorts of skills we actually need [in our future employees],” McKay explained.
She suggested financial planning professional bodies had to become more proactive in that area, like their accounting counterparts, if the situation was to be effectively addressed.
“When I came through the accounting program, in the first year we were told ‘you will be a member of the CPA (CPA Australia) or the institute (Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand), there is no question about it’,” she said.
“Financial planning doesn’t have that recognition at a university level as to being a vital career, which it is.
“So I think we’re letting ourselves down if we’re not having quota dialogues with the institutions.”
However, Smithink founder David Smith said he thought the problem stemmed from an image perception that was driving the most talented future participants away even before they decided what university course they would do.
“We can go back 30 or 40 years ago and I think we were attracting more talent in both professions,” Smith said.
“The biggest problem I see is how do we make the profession sexy again. Do you really want to sit in an office and fill out a BAS (business activity statement) or a tax return every day? Of course you don’t.
“I think both professions have an image problem and we have to make them attractive to these young kids, so they say ‘I want to do this’ and I don’t think we’ve got that.”
