Advisers today remind me of cricketers prior to Packer arriving to save their bacon. They all dress the same, they all follow the rules, they may feel hard done-by but no one stands up and says we are being exploited.
Advisers take all of the risk and receive very little of the rewards. Who designed toxic products? Who did the lending to Storm clients? Who released them to the market? Who has been regulated almost out of existence?
If the planning community is waiting for a Kerry Packer to save them they will be waiting a very long time! When will we stand up and fight?
As I sat and watched a recent television drama, HOWZAT – the story of how Kerry Packer took on the cricket institution, challenged the norm and won – it occurred to me that even with FoFA, we really have not seen anybody challenging the norm. World Series cricket, as we all know, went on to become a fantastic success.
The original standard of the game was for both teams to wear white, which of course would not convey competition, hence the introduction of colour. Another change that needed to be made for televised coverage of the sport was to see the ball in play, replacing the red ball with white.
For more than a hundred years the game was played during the day, but Packer introduced night cricket under bright lights. Until his intervention, international cricketers were poorly paid. Today they are highly paid sportsmen as a result of World Series cricket.
The rules of the game stayed the same, and the cricket boards continue to administer and govern the sport.
Using this analogy, will future financial reform bring about change to challenge the current vertical integration model, or can we expect more of the same? How will an adviser acting in the best interests of the client be interpreted in the courts in the event of potential litigation? Will there need to be a test case to understand what ‘best interest’ means?
How will conflicts of interests be managed, will house brand stay prominent on APLs?
What will risk profiling look like in the future? More balanced funds anyone?
No thanks I’ve had quite enough.
Originally published by Leading Minds Academy.
