Advisers need to set prices: Perkovic
Financial planners and their clients have to supplant platform providers and fund managers as the price setters in the advice equation, according to Colonial First State executive general manager for advice, Marianne Perkovic.
Participating on a panel at the Financial Services Council conference on the Gold Coast, Perkovic said that unless the dynamic which granted price-setting control to the product manufacturers was changed, the objectives of the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) changes would not be reached.
"If that dynamic does not change then we will still be trying to retrofit our advice offering to fit the needs of clients," she said.
"Our mantra needs to be that advisers need to be the price-makers," Perkovic said.
In a session dedicated to the future of licensees, she acknowledged the challenges in finding new commercial models to carry the industry forward.
To this end, Perkovic said it was crucial to hang on to grandfathering, but that it needed to be in the context of then transitioning to new types of revenue streams consistent with the rules contained within the FOFA legislation.
In what seemed to be a relatively gentle reference to recent competition between the Commonwealth Bank and BT to recruit planning groups, she said reallocating advisers to licensees could be counterproductive and represent a distraction of resources from more important issues.
"And when that happens, [we] won't move ahead as a profession," Perkovic said.
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