- SMSF Association Media Release
The demand for retirement advice overshadows most other areas of financial advice, but the costs, complexity, and lack of adviser tools often drive advisers away. If the need to evolve and reshape how retirement advice is delivered remains unaddressed, Australians will increasingly face some of the most uncertain financial periods of their lives alone.
This will be one of the key discussion points at Australia’s premier event for SMSF professionals, the SMSF Association National Conference 2022, held in Adelaide from 20 – 22 April this year.
As the conversation around retirement advice standards grows, The SMSF Association introduces a suite of heavyweight industry spokespeople to its centrepiece symposium at the conference: Resetting retirement income advice – Building a retirement advice centred community and best practice system.
The symposium panel has recently been bolstered with the addition of Deborah Kent, past Director of the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) and former national president of the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA).
Louise Biti, Director of Aged Care Steps with over 20 years’ experience in financial services, an expert in the relationship between aged care and SMSFs, has now also been added to the symposium panel for the second hour.
Association CEO John Maroney said, “The wealth of industry experience shared by our headline panels this year is incredible and is setting this event up to be one of our most dynamic National Conferences to date.”
“Retirement advice has historically been a challenge to navigate for many advisers which is something we’re highly invested in addressing. It is essential that SMSFs are supported by high-quality advice, but the complexity of delivering retirement advice demands a complete restructuring of advice education, regulation, capability, and tools.
“The risk of locking out people from the financial advice system due to costs and complexity, particularly as they face the financial challenges involved in retiring, is not something we should accept. We look forward to seeing our panel unpack this challenge on day one of the conference.”
The comprehensive session will be split into two distinct discussions. The first will explore the big picture problems that retirees face, particularly in the wake of many challenging years and geopolitical events, and the advice opportunity in the sector.
The second discussion will demonstrate how intergenerational advice can be provided using the conference case study, which will enable practical application of the discussion. This session will also crucially seek to contrast early and late-stage retirement advice.
“We believe that providing a real case study contrast between early and late-stage retirement advice is going to be eye-opening for a lot of our attendees who are approaching retirement or working with clients who are in the late stage of their SMSF journey,” said Mr Maroney.
“Our panel will demonstrate how retirement advice can be provided with the entire family in mind and decode the differences between providing retirement advice to a self-funded retiree and a client who may be eligible for at least some aged pension.
“We’ve focused on maintaining a practical component to our major sessions which is going to add a lot of value to our delegates.”
A full synopsis of the National Conference program is available here.
To register for National Conference 2022, please click here.