Industry funds urge greater product provider transparency
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has substantially renewed the class orders covering the general advice settings, but not before the industry funds urged greater transparency around the identities of the actual product providers.
At the same time as announcing that it had renewed the general advice class orders without substantial change, ASIC released a submission from the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST), which revealed the degree to which the industry funds want greater clarity about the relationships between planners and product providers.
The AIST submission said it endorsed the current approach requiring disclosure of the relationship between the expert and the product provider, but suggested that disclosure ought to go further, particularly with respect to "mum and dad" investors.
"While perhaps outside the scope of this review, AIST believes that this relationship should also be required to be disclosed to the retail client who is the end user of services provided, i.e. the actual ‘mum or dad' investor who is benefiting from the advice being provided," it said.
The submission said this was not currently a requirement under the class order.
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