The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has cancelled 440 SMSF auditor registrations for not satisfying the competency exam needed to retain their registration.

The SMSF Professionals’ Association of Australia (SPAA) has thrown its support behind the government’s announcement that the register of financial advisers would include information about the practitioner’s qualifications and any memberships of professional associations.

SMSF auditors must realise who they are actually working for and communicate that to the entire industry in order to demonstrate the real value of the process, according to a specialist practitioner servicing the sector.

Technical retirement savings advice provider McPherson Super Consulting has appointed former Australian Taxation Office (ATO) superannuation assistant deputy commissioner Stuart Forsyth as a company director.

Accountants operating as sole practitioners do not need to be concerned about perceived capacity constraints in becoming licensed and adding financial advisory services to their businesses, an industry licensee has said.

The Financial System Inquiry (FSI) report has recommended removing the ability of superannuation funds to use limited recourse borrowing arrangements (LRBA) to acquire assets. In its report handed down today, the FSI cited two main objectives driving the recommendation. The first of those was to “prevent the unnecessary build-up of risk in the superannuation system […]

All SMSFs are required by law to formulate and adhere to an investment strategy. In this two-part feature, Grant Abbott details the various components, both legislative and otherwise, to take into account when creating this critical element of an SMSF.

If SMSF advisers wanted to benefit from technology, they had to stop working for the systems and begin making the systems work for them, according to a senior administration specialist.

Encouragement from the major accounting bodies for members to apply for their own licence to enable them to provide financial advice to their existing SMSF clients was a concern as the intricacies of being a licensee were largely being ignored in the discussion, according to a senior industry executive.