News

Strategy

Test strategy with accountant, administrator

Hands holding pieces of jigsaw puzzle.

SMSF advisers need to work in conjunction with accountants and fund administrators before implementing certain strategies for their clients to ensure successful execution in the post-super reform environment.

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Auditing

Auditors warned of asset valuation fiddling

SMSFs are expected to distort asset valuations for various reasons as a result of the 2016 budget super reforms, with auditors likely to face multiple risks when going through these funds.

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Practice Management

Advice will face customisation revolution

The future of the SMSF advice proposition will mimic the same shift experienced by other industries whereby services will be mass produced yet remain customisable for clients.

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Regulation

Adviser fall from FASEA highly detrimental

A tightrope walker with a body of water in the background.

The incoming education and professional standards framework for advisers, to be established by the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA), could decrease adviser numbers in the SMSF sector, as well as turn experienced practitioners off from working in the sector altogether.

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Retirement

Retirees spend less than age pension: report

More than half of Australian retirees are spending less than the age pension each year, raising significant questions about current retirement policy and super fund strategies, new research by Milliman has found.

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Practice Management

Blockchain could underpin SMSFs

Blockchain could potentially act as the underpinning technology for SMSFs and superannuation funds more broadly to consolidate the sectors and reduce costs, according to an SMSF specialist. 

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Auditing

Automated audit tech due diligence urged

The era of unprecedented rapid technological changes will require SMSF auditors to check that any new automated auditing software and systems meet regulatory compliance and auditing standards.

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Accounting

Confusion lingers around tax advice, AFSLs

Tony Negline

Accountants are calling for certainty on the interplay between the Corporations Act tax agents’ exemption, limited Australian financial services licences (AFSL) and full AFSLs, according to Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand superannuation leader Tony Negline. 

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Regulation

Designations are not qualifications: FASEA

A besuited man stands at a crossroads.

Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) chief executive Deen Sanders has made it explicitly clear financial adviser designations and experience do not equate to qualifications under the new education and professional standards framework for advisers.

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Investments

Investing in TBC world requires attention

Building pension portfolios in the context of the $1.6 million transfer balance cap (TBC) regime is an issue advisers will need to start considering for their clients.

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