Key industry fund partners with planner groups

The chief executive of Australia’s largest industry superannuation fund, AustralianSuper, Ian Silk (pictured) has declared the war between industry superannuation and advisers to be potentially over in the wake of successfully trialling financial planning arrangements with a panel of financial planning groups.

Confirmation of the panel arrangement follows a trial that has involved planning groups including Godfrey Pembroke, Matrix Planning Solutions, Dixon Advisory, Woods & Partners, Paul Moran and Switzer Financial Planning.

AustralianSuper general manager, growth and opportunities, Paul Schroder told Money Management that much of the first 12 months of the trial had been spent defining the ground rules while the actual implementation had occurred this calendar year.

“It was a case of sitting down and working out where both sides were coming from and what was needed to make it work,” he said. “We looked at working with a number of planning groups but, obviously, we ended up working with those prepared to work to the fee-for-service and other criteria we required.”

Silk said that for advisers the trial had opened wider possibilities for advising and meeting the needs of client.

The key to the trial appears to have been the provision of advice on a fee-for-service basis by the panel of planning groups, while ensuring AustralianSuper retains its direct relationship with its members.

According to Silk the trial has been running for 12 months, and will run at least a further nine months.

“AustralianSuper has always been a major supporter of good, sound advice,” he said. “What we do not support is the commission structure of so many super products that leads to conflicted advice.

“As we look toward new, clearer legislation relating to commissions and requiring an adviser to act in a client’s best interests, we are seeing many of the more progressive advisers working to build fee-for-service and other models of advice into their practices.”

Silk’s sentiments were supported by the general manager of Godfrey Pembroke, Tom Reddacliff and the managing director of Matrix, Rick Di Crisoforo who acknowledged the arrangements benefited all parties.

Silk made clear that the arrangement with the planning groups sat alongside its member education programs, call centres and its on-going relationship with Industry Fund Financial Planning.

Schroder said the trial had not been a one-way street in which the planning groups had been required to meet the demands of AustralianSuper, but rather a two-way street that had involved the superannuation fund making itself capable of appearing on their Approved Product Lists.