AMP positions on commissions

AMP is holding its annual adviser conference in Melbourne this week as it prepares its advisers for its self-imposed July 1 deadline on commission payments to advisers for new investments.

AMP’s director of financial planning advice solutions, Steve Helmich, said the group had conducted diagnostics across all planner practices in AMP Financial Planning and Hillross to monitor the group’s moves to the new world. A key part of the transition is ensuring the group’s 1,400 advisers are able to “clearly articulate their value proposition so clients understand what they are paying for and value what the financial planer adds to their life”, Helmich said.

“Once upon a time this industry gave away advice and paid for product placement,” Helmich said.

“Now it’s reversed.”

The group is assessing where its advisers’ revenue is sourced from across the client base, as well as their customer proposition and how this is articulated to clients, and how this might need to be adjusted in the new environment.

The group is also continuing to shift clients and planners to ensure clients who aren’t being serviced aren’t falling between the cracks.

But while Helmich believes the group’s advisers are on track for a July 1 deadline, some fund managers might find they are dropped from the group’s Approved Product List if they fail to toe the line, with some yet to adapt to AMP’s commission free requirement.

“Perhaps some of them want to ring out the last opportunities of having a commission-based product in place,” Helmich said.

“I wish everyone in the industry would move faster because this would increase professionalism and increase consumer confidence in the industry,” Helmich said.