Pauline Vamos
The party that gains government at the upcoming Federal Election will face pressure from the superannuation industry to amend the financial services regulatory environment to make it easier for superannuation funds to provide financial advice.
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) national conference on the Gold Coast was told by both its new chief executive, Pauline Vamos, and two key speakers that there was strong need for a change in regulatory approach to make financial advice cheaper and more available.
The comments came ahead of the release of new ANOP research today that reveals the Government’s superannuation co-contribution regime has been highly successful.
Vamos said that on the basis of the clear-cut success of the co-contribution regime, ASFA would be lobbying for its extension to ensure that it also benefited middle-income earners.
With respect to the question of advice, Vamos said it was ASFA’s fundamental policy that people need advice to help them make the choices they will confront all the way through their superannuation lifecycle.
“Everyone should have access to advice and everyone should receive advice,” Vamos said.
In a later session of the conference, the head of technical services at Challenger, Alex Denham, argued that irrespective of the new ‘better super’ regime there was a continuing need for financial planner involvement in superannuation.
Both she and senior lawyer with Greenfields Financial Services Lawyers Mark Bland argued that advice was necessary.
Bland, for his part, suggested that superannuation funds should be doing more to ensure that they were positioned to provide such advice.
