Liberals Speak About Fixing the FoFA Mess

The Coalition wants to fix the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms that the Labor Party put into place, Australian Banking and Finance reported, adding that some 16 amendments are bound to be introduced by the Liberals.
Some of the changes it promised would be the complete removal of the opt in option, the simplification and the streamlining of the additional annual fee disclosure requirements and the improvement of the best-interest duty.
The Coalition also wants to provide certainty with regards to the provision and the availability of scaled device and the refinement of the ban of commissions on risk insurance inside superannuation.
What was glaring though is that the amendments do not seek to repeal the more contentious elements of the legislation. A separate report in The Australian stated this is not a priority for the incoming Party.
It is worth mentioning though that both parties actually agree and in support of the general themes of the FoFA, which means the adjustments and reforms will be focused on small details or the implementation dates, for example. The general proposition of the FoFA is not likely to be affected.
Some analysts also expect a short and sharp review of the financial advice with panels of experts leading the way.
Reforms not Beneficial
The Coalition believes the reforms initiated by then Senator Mathias Cormann would only increase red tape and will cost more for business owners and its consumers. Mr. Cormann is now the minister for finance.
Liberals called these reforms "Labor's FoFA mess."
But the Coalition is believed to be fully supportive of the 16 FoFA amendments it introduced. According to Mark Spiers, the general manager of Advice at the Westpac-owned BT Financial Group, the bank is quite excited about monitoring the developments in the implementation of the reforms.
For John Flavell, the executive general manager of wealth advice at NAB Wealth, he does not want to speculate on anything just yet. He noted that banks would have to work together with the government to give the best possible service to their customers.
FoFA, he added, aims to provide a better financial future for the Australians, and that is what it should achieve.
The changes are quite acceptable for Richard Batten, a partner at Minter Ellison Lawyers. He is specifically fond of removing the opt in and general advice from conflicted renumeration.
Mr. Batten stated in the Australian Banking and Finance report that there are other changes that FoFA needs and these would be glaringly obvious once these initial reforms are started.

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