Brokering a common agreement to review the Financial Advisers Act (2008) won't be easy. Photo / Thinkstock
Lyrics Depot offered to send Randy Newman's 'God's Song' as a ringtone to my mobile: I'll bet very few are chosen, and fewer still are called, to that particular opportunity.
As anybody familiar with the tune will know, 'God's Song' is not obvious ringtone material.
But these lyrics from the song came to mind this week while I was working on a story about a proposed 'Summit on the accessibility of advice':
"The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said 'Lord a plague is on the world...."
And so it goes on - not to a happy ending.
Perhaps gathering disparate industry players into a room to thrash out a shared approach to regulating financial advice isn't on the same scale as drafting a joint religious official complaint to God about the futility of existence... but it's still an ambitious project.
Bruce Cortesi, chair of the Professional Advisers' Association (PAA), said in a communiqué that the Summit, to be held this month, will address "proper consideration of the big picture - accessibility of personalised and professional financial advice to the consumer".
The ultimate aim of the Summit is to produce a unified industry submission to the review of the Financial Advisers Act (2008).
Rather the current, potentially confusing, sliding scale of standards that apply to various adviser tiers - Authorised Financial Advisers (AFAs), Registered Financial Advisers (RFAs), Qualifying Financial Entity (QFE) advisers (who might also be RFAs or AFAs) - Cortesi says the FAA review should close "the gap between expected behaviour and practice standards" for all regardless of label.
"Any [FAA] recommendation needs to ensure minimal disruption to the access of advice for the consumer, and will contribute to the change of behaviours required to raise standards of performance across the entire industry," he says in the PAA release.
The Summit is probably the last-ditch effort of the advisory industry to present a unified stance on the FAA review, which has some revolutionary options on the table, such as an Australian-style restriction on life insurance commissions.
Brokering a common agreement won't be easy, but it's worth ringing around for a few opinions.
Meanwhile, here's a couple of slightly more upbeat Randy Newman numbers to consider as ringtones.
App users tap here for Randy Newman's 'It's Money That Matters'
App users tap here for Randy Newman's 'It's Money That I Love'
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