The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) has released a new video toolkit to help guide advisers in creating video statements of advice (SOA), which can be more efficient than paper documents.
The Statement of Advice Project (SOAP) Box Set has 14 videos guiding financial advisers on how to create an SOA video and incorporates examples of real-life events, including pre-retirement planning and life risk advice, as part of the information.
FPA chief executive Sarah Abood said the series features discussions led by FPA head of policy, strategy and innovation Ben Marshan and The Cyber Collective Australia founder Fraser Jack.
“A lot of what drives up the cost of financial advice is the amount of background work, information investigation and time spent by the financial planner on what is required to be included in the SOA,” Abood said.
“Not only that, the SOA ends up becoming a document that clients find difficult to read and ends up clouding the actual advice being given to them. Any efforts made to make advice more efficient and usable by clients is a critical step forward for the profession.
“Through the SOAP Box Set, Ben and Fraser have put in an incredible amount of work towards making this a reality and speaks to their tireless passion in making advice more accessible and affordable for clients.”
Marshan said the current SOA requirements predate the rise of providing services online and given their prevalence today, he hoped the video series can showcase a variety of alternatives that can still provide a compliant SOA under the current legislation.
“We are still seeing financial planners put together paper-based SOAs that stretch between 80 to 100 pages long,” he said.
“The idea behind the Statement of Advice Project is to push the boundaries of finding the most effective way of providing advice to clients while also keeping within ASIC’s (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) regulations.”
The FPA stated that as part of the creative process for the video series it consulted with its members, regulators, lawyers, compliance experts and technology providers to understand how to develop a paperless SOA that reduces compliance costs and delivers advice in a method clients can comprehend.
