QOA: Praemium boss confident banks won’t give bad advice

9 February 2023
| By James Mitchell |
image
image
expand image

Praemium chief executive, Anthony Wamsteker, is confident banks and superannuation funds won’t be able to get away with poor or conflicted financial advice despite recommendations to scrap best interest duty.

On Wednesday (8 February), Treasury’s 267-page Quality of Advice Review (QOA) was released, which recommended banks and super funds be allowed to provide advice without being subject to best interest duty. 

Reviewer Michelle Levy’s recommendation was that best interest duty be replaced with an obligation to provide ‘good’ advice.

Commenting on the report, Praemium CEO Anthony Wamsteker said the banks never really exited the wealth management space.

“I don’t think they ever fully left, to be honest. I’m pretty sure all of the banks have private wealth advisers working for them,” Wamsteker said.

“The rules that have been put in place have helped some of the problems that occurred. The biggest thing you want to avoid is advisers acting in the interests of their employer instead of the client by putting the client into the employer’s product. That was the stuff that led to a lot of problems in the past. I don’t think that would happen again under the current regulatory regime,” he said.

“Right at the minute I think people are pretty clear that if you work for a super fund or bank, you are not just allowed to put customers into your employer’s suite of products without good reason.”

Last year, Levy defended her plan to allow product providers to give advice. Speaking at The AFR Super and Wealth Summit in November, she said there would never be enough advisers for everyone to get the advice they need.

“Advice is episodic, so we need a diversity of providers and the obvious candidates are the people that look after our money or lend us money,” she said.

“We know superannuation funds are giving advice.I would be saying they have a responsibility to be giving helpful advice to their members and likewise banks, insurance and investment managers.”

 

Read more about:

AUTHOR

Recommended for you

sub-bgsidebar subscription

Never miss the latest news and developments in wealth management industry

MARKET INSIGHTS

GG

So shareholders lose a dividend plus have seen the erosion of value. Qantas decides to clawback remuneration from Alan ...

2 months 1 week ago
Denise Baker

This is why I left my last position. There was no interest in giving the client quality time, it was all about bumping ...

2 months 1 week ago
gonski

So the Hayne Royal Commission has left us with this. What a sad day for the financial planning industry. Clearly most ...

2 months 1 week ago

A Sydney-based financial adviser has been banned from providing financial services in the interest of consumer protection after failing to act on conduct concerns. ...

3 weeks 3 days ago

ASIC has cancelled the AFSL of a $250 million Sydney fund manager, one of two AFSL cancellations announced by the corporate regulator....

3 weeks 1 day ago

Having divested its advice business in August, AMP is undergoing restructuring in at least four other departments amid a cost simplification program....

2 weeks 5 days ago