Perhaps no single report had a greater influence on the superannuation and financial planning sectors during 2003 than that produced by the Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in February.
The report, which was highly critical of elements of the financial planning sector, has been fundamental to many of the changes which have been pursued throughout the year.
It was the importance of the report to events in 2003 which saw the ACA’s head, Louise Sylvan, voted onto Super Review’s TOP 10 most influential people list.
Super Review’s panel believed the ACA/ASIC report had influenced the way super funds approached offering financial planning to their members in 2003 and selected Sylvan, who has led the ACA for most of the past decade, even though she started work as the new deputy chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, in early November.
“The report was one of the watershed things that occurred this year,” said a panel member. “It had a big influence on regulation, the way people think about the industry and the way people do their jobs.”
Another added: “Industry funds, in particular, offer financial planning or have some ties with financial planners or have their members hounded by financial planners. So it’s been a big influence on them.”
Looking back on events in 2003, Sylvan says she believes the report has become a touchstone for consumers who are increasingly examining their retirement savings.
“What we were looking at here were people’s retirement incomes and the development of a market in which the people who were giving advice weren’t being paid by the people who were necessarily receiving that advice,” she says.
Sylvan, speaking on her ACA role, believes that the report acted as a catalyst for change and that oversight is likely to be much more intense moving forward.
