WELCOME MEMBERS
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please email us using the “Contact Us” tab or call us on 03 9823 1344.
ADVISER TOOLKIT
PARAPLANNING
Please send all enquiries and requests to: paraplanning@adviceexchange.com.au
As an adviser, your time is best spent sitting in front of clients generating business. Our paraplanning service has developed an efficient process to enable you to maximise that time – with your clients. The Advice Exchange (TAE) Paraplanning Service is designed to deliver a superior, professional quality SoA solution for our advisers.
Our team has strong technical knowledge, SoA preparation skills and a wealth of practical experience. This includes several years of training in the use of financial planning software and the link through to the SoA production process.
Advice Documents
The Advice Exchange regularly reviews the need for advice documents. Template documents are created to cover many common strategies.
SOA Template - * Please contact the TAE Office for the latest templates*
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Our corporate governance program is designed to consider business strategy, risk management, business processes and people. We focus on addressing potential legislative change and providing strategies and solutions.
Representative Manual
The Representative Manual (also known as the Compliance Manual) sets out your obligations and duties under the Representative entered into between you and The Advice Exchange. It is important for you to read this manual and make yourself familiar with the professional standards to be adopted and expected of you by The Advice Exchange. This manual is to be read in conjunction with all TAE policies.
Breach, Incident & Complaint Reporting
What is a Breach?
A breach is any failure to comply with applicable laws, regulations, license conditions, applicable industry standards and codes, approved policies, frameworks, standards and guidelines, including delegations, authorities and limits. This definition includes all actual, potential, and likely breaches of regulatory and legislative obligations.
Examples of a Breach:
An incident can escalate into a potential or significant breach. However, there are some issues that will be an automatic breach:
Employee or third-party theft or deceit;
Data loss due to inadequate data security systems;
Disclosure of client’s details to another business outside of our privacy requirements;
Legal action due to misleading advice;
No advice document when personal advice has been provided to the client;
The advice is not in the best interests of the client;
Failing to notify a product provider of a significant dealing which is inconsistent with the product’s Target Market Determination (TMD) within 10 business days; and
Any breaches of the regulations;
Examples of a Significant Breach:
Breach of any civil penalty provision (s1317E) which is deemed to be a failure to comply with most legislative requirements in Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act;
Where the provision breached is an offence involving imprisonment for 12 months (or 3 months for dishonestly offences);
Misleading and deceptive conduct under sections 1041H and 12DA(1) ASIC Act;
Breaches that result or are likely to result in material loss or damage to clients;
Significant breach of a core obligation (section 912A and Financial Services Law in 761A(A) (a) - (c))
Gross Negligence;
Serious Fraud
Investigations ongoing for greater than 30 days; and
Other licensees’ adviser misconduct.
What is an incident?
An incident is any event that has direct monetary, regulatory or other economic impact due to inadequate or failed internal processes, methodologies, people, systems or external events.
Examples of Incidents:
Statement of Advice (SoA) delivered outside the time critical period of five business days after providing verbal advice
Not providing a Financial Services Guide (FSG) to an existing client when providing further advice after the FSG had changed since providing the previous advice
Providing a Record of Advice (RoA) to an existing client when there were signifcant changes to the client’s personal circumstances
Not following the complaints handling process
Non-compliance with any TAE business policy or guidelines
Loss due to external events such as a natural disaster
What is a Complaint?
A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction made to or about a business which relates to its products, services, staff or our handling of a complaint where a response resolution is explicitly or implicitly expected or legally required. A complaint can be made by phone, email, social media post or in person.
Examples of Explicit Complaints:
A client clearly states that they do not believe that you have met the condition of the ongoing service agreement you have with them and requests a refund of all fees or part fees
The client states that you did not fully and clearly explain to them the risk involved with the investment you recommended and implemented for them and as a result the client has made a loss due to poor or inadequate advice that they were provided
The client states that you did not bring to their attention the Capital Gain Tax (CGT) situation of transferring their asset held outside of super to a platform inside of super and now they have a CGT bill to pay and expect you or the AFSL to make restitution
The client states that you do not explain to them that by replacing their previous held life risk cover with a new one they would lose their non-avoidance conditions of the “innocent non-disclosure” protection they had under their old policy
Examples of Implicit Complaints:
I am worried about the level of risk I am now taking since you advised me to roll my funds over to a new investment which has higher exposure to International and Australian shares, and we are experiencing a lot of volatility in the share market
I have not heard from you or receive any advice since investing my money in the fund you recommended, and the market seems to have been losing ground and I would have liked to have heard from you
I am concerned about the returns on my investments, they are not performing as well as expected or suggested.
What are you required to do:
All practices are required to keep a Register and Report all Incidents to The Compliance Team with in 24 hours.
All Incidents and Complaints must be reported to The Compliance Team within 1 business day of being made aware via compliance@adviceexchange.com.au, ensure your email contains all information regarding the incident. We will guide you through any further action steps required. Have your incident register available for review at your compliance audits.
Compliance Documents
Please refer to our Client File Review Checklist below to gain insight into what we look for when reviewing your client files. To ensure TAE advisers demonstrate best practices and a client centric approach we mandate a prevett process, open the link below for further details.
FOFA
Future of Financial Advice (FoFA)
The Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms focus on improving the quality of financial advice, particularly product recommendations, and expanding the availability of more affordable forms of advice. Following several incidents of poor advice leading to significant client losses, the reforms are intended to improve investor protection and instil confidence in the financial advice industry.
Best Interest
From 1 July 2013, an adviser providing personal financial advice to a retail client must act in the best interests of the client. In the case of conflict between the interests of the client and those of the adviser, the licensee, the authorised representative and their associates, the adviser must give priority to the interests of the client. Please read the document below for guidance in relation to the Best Interests Duty.
PI Certificate of Currency
We have completed our PI insurance renewal process for the group for 2024/2025.
Please feel free to contact our office at admin@adviceexchange.com.au or call to discuss, particularly if you would like to discuss any concerns or obstacles that you feel that you are facing in the compliant operation of your business.
OPERARTIONS
Revenue Management
Revenue Processing is an essential component of the Licensee. Revenue processing is performed fortnightly by The Advice Exchange in conjunction with Commcentral, a company specialising in providing revenue services to Australian Financial Services Licensees.
Client Management
The Advice Exchange has agreements with over 100 product providers. All adviser code requests and client transfers (internal and external) are managed by the AFSL. All requests must be forwarded to: admin@adviceexchange.com.au
Transfer of Servicing Rights Form
Software Support
The Advice Exchange support’s the use of XPLAN. We manage all XPLAN software licences and are available for second level technical support.
TAE XPLAN Site
The TAE XPLAN site can be found by clicking https://adviceexchange.xplan.iress.com.au
All licence requests are to be made by forwarding the XPLAN licence request form to admin@adviceexchange.com.au
XPLAN Training
As part of the XPLAN licencing fee, users are entitled to enrol in XPLAN training by stating you are a member of The Advice Exchange.
Training Courses can be found by logging into the Iress Learning Centre: www.learningcentre.iress.com/login/start.php
The Iress Learning Centre enables you to choose your learning method of choice. These include:
virtual classroom
eLearning
webinar
micro-learn
For guidance and instructions on how to navigate and make the best use of The Iress Learning Centre and Iress Community please click here: Iress Training Webinar
Opex Suite Training
To access the latest Opex Suite Training Recording please click here
For more training videos, guides and Tips please login to the Opex Helpdesk Portal using your unique login credentials
Education
The Advice Exchange CPD Year is 01 July to 30 June as per the most recent notice provided to ASIC under section 922HA of the Corporations Act 2001. The Advice Exchange CPD obligations of relevant providers Total Minimum Target is 40 hours of ‘qualifying CPD’ per CPD year. Please refer to the CPD & Training Policy for more information.
At TAE we utilise Kaplan for management of CPD and continuing education. Please send through your certificates to admin@adviceexchange.com.au to have your points added and approved. TAE allows 4 hours of professional or technical reading (0.25 CPD Points per article; Maximum of 0.50 CPD per publication) toward the annual CPD target.
POLICIES
TAE Compliance Policies
The attached policies outline the guidelines/processes you are required to adopt as an Authorised Representative of The Advice Exchange. Your compliance to these policies will be reviewed by our Compliance Team at each Compliance Review/Audit.
APL / INVESTMENTS
Asset Allocation Review
Approved Product List (APL)
INVESTMENT/APL POLICY
Investments - Our APL focuses on underlying investments rather than platforms taking a ‘best of breed’ approach to selecting investments for our APL. With the assistance of DNR Capital, our Investment Committee carefully selects investments with a track record of best meeting the client needs..
Insurance - Our APL is open in this respect to all authorised insurers in Australia except for NEOS Life, which are not authorised for use.
Platforms - We do not dictate platforms; however, all underlying products must be on our APL.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s) - Please ensure you read the ETF policy to understand the thresholds that apply to the various types of ETFs.
Direct Equities and Limitations - Our APL permits advisers to recommend shares within the ASX top 200 with appropriate research to support the recommendation.
Gearing property into SMSF - Advisers are restricted to the APL which does not include direct property. Advisers are permitted to provide strategic advice regarding the advantages and disadvantages of direct property and leave the specific property selection to the clients themselves or refer them to an appropriate expert such as a buyer advocate to assist them in this process.
