Superannuation Warehouse is an accounting firm and do not provide any financial advice. All information provided on this page has being prepared without taking into account of the Trustees’ objectives, financial situation or needs. The purpose of this page is to introduce Trustees to the different types of financial advice in the market.
Financial advisors are usually independent practitioners who operate in a fiduciary capacity whereby the client’s interests comes before their own. Clients are generally required to answer a series of questions which allow the financial advisor to devise the optimum investment strategy for the client.
With the traditional financial advice, clients are constantly in contact with their financial advisors so that the advisors are updated on the client’s investment objectives and make the necessary changes if required. There is a lot of human intervention in the portfolio management with the traditional financial advice.
The financial advisors will generally issue a Statement Of Advice (SOA) to their clients highlighting the recommended investments to be made by the client. To see a sample SOA by ASIC, please see below:
There is a perception that financial planners may not act in the best interest of their clients. The main disadvantages to using a financial planner is as follows:
- The fees charged by most financial planners are often regarded as overpriced.
- Some financial planners make investment decisions with their clients’ Funds that benefits themselves, not the clients. In these situations, the financial planners might pressure their clients into making highly risky investments. This could have disastrous consequences for the Trustees as failed investments would mean the loss of their retirement Funds. The most recent financial planning scandal is the Commonwealth Bank scandal in 2016, read more about it here.
As a result of the disadvantages to using a financial planner, many people have switched to using robo advice.
