Restoring trust for seniors in financial advice industry
Older Australians are calling for federal senators to uphold protections for consumers by voting to disallow regulations which remove important consumer safeguards from financial advice.
The federal government’s regulations still reportedly “water down” reforms passed by the last Parliament, known as the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA), according to seniors advocate, COTA Australia.
Ian Yates, COTA Australia chief executive, claims the independent legal and professional advice confirms these regulations are “against the best interests of Australian consumers”.
The Senate Economics Committee has heard unanimous messages from consumer organisations, such as COTA Australia, CHOICE, and National Seniors, as well as independent legal advice, that these regulations reportedly create “significant consumer detriment”.
“The issues have been fully canvassed and, even the Senate Committee’s report – supported by only a minority of Senators participating in the inquiry – was lukewarm at best while presenting strong arguments against the reforms by independent witnesses,” Mr Yates claims.
“The issue has been second only to pension cuts in recent representations to us by COTA members, and other consumer organisations report the same high level of concern by members,” he adds.
According to Mr Yates, the government needs to take these regulations back to the drawing board and start from the interests of consumers when redrafting them – not the “big banks” and other large financial institutions.
“This will lay the foundations for restoring trust in the financial advice industry and make sure consumers get the very best advice they should be able to expect,” he says.
