Fiducian intensifies SMSF advice

Fiducian Financial Services has implemented a mandatory requirement for all of its planners servicing the self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) market to complete an approved course on the subject in an effort to ensure a minimum standard of advice is achieved in this area.

Fiducian technical services manager Scot Andrews said the initiative was introduced for several key reasons.

“It was driven by two things. The number of clients that we’re finding that need this advice, and the advisers themselves wanting to have the knowledge and skills to service them. I guess the second factor is the legal requirement of actually making sure the advisers are competent in that area,” he explained.

Moving forward, Fiducian’s financial planners servicing SMSF clients will have to undergo continual professional development regarding the topic to keep their skills set up to date.

“Each adviser in SMSFs will have an extra requirement in their ongoing training, so there will be an increased amount of material or training for specialists in SMSFs,” Andrews said.

“It means these planners will have to complete a little bit more training with a high proportion of their workload in the SMSF area,” he added.

While Fiducian has placed more emphasis on the quality of service to SMSF market it doesn’t see coverage of the market segment as warranting a completely separate business arm.

“At the moment we’re not viewing it that way. We’re seeing it as a subset of advice because it’s very hard to pull it out of the whole financial planning process,” Andrews said.

The first course of this kind will be offered in August and will be facilitated by Tribecca. Advisers will be required to pay a small cost, which will be subsidised by Fiducian.