The Value of Advice

The Value of Advice Report

The Value of Advice Report (PDF), released on 25 November 2020, continues to advocate for regulatory reform by measuring the value of advice to consumers, small business and the community at large. The research found that if more people use professional advice, we will be better off as individuals, businesses and, importantly, as a society.

In an Australian first, CPA Australia modelled the macro-economic impact of making professional advice available to the entire population. ‘Professional advice’ includes accounting, taxation, financial, superannuation, business, and mortgage broking advice, among others. CPA Australia found that if properly implemented professional advice was available to all Australians, the total economic uplift could be $630.3 billion a year and spending on the Age Pension could be reduced by 21.6 per cent.*

The research also found that consumers and SMEs see financial advice very differently to lawmakers. If we are to make financial advice more accessible we need to rethink the way professional advice is regulated and move towards a client-centric model. The four principle recommendations of a client-centric model include:

1. Reflect client goals, not product
2. One regulatory regime, one regulator
3. A single code of conduct
4. Individual registration of advisers

“I don’t think we’d achieve it [goal] without them. No, we wouldn’t. Every time we meet with them it’s always, discussing the goal and how we’re tracking and so yeah, we’d never make it without them.”

“Somebody telling us what we can do with our money that’s sitting in our mortgage or with the equity that we have in our house. Or even like our savings and stuff, what we should be doing.”