Thoughts on money, from a Financial Planner in Perth
Discussion on how fees, independence and bias operate in the field of providing advice on financial matters.
Everyone has a form of bias built into their decision-making processes. It could be based on bad outcomes from past experiences or better than expected results from one activity over another. It may be that you gathered your relevant  knowledge from a source that itself contained an inate bias. The trick is to know how … Read more
Money, power, bias – and truth. The Global Financial Crisis (now simply designated ‘the GFC’) brought all of these priorities, and the conflicts they cause, into stark view. A new movie “The Inside Job” successfully highlights the interplay of vested interests, hidden compensation and regulatory policy stupidity that suggests not only that the eventual crisis … Read more
One of my favourite stupid sayings goes something along the lines of “…. is the new black” (insert whatever is the trend of the moment. It is ridiculous because you cannot be “new” and considered a classic both at the same time). So i am actually being terribly clever on this lovely Friday, by using … Read more
Far from me to sit on my porch playing the fiddle, while watching the business district i live in being burned to the ground. That once-magnificent newspaper, the Australian Financial Review, yesterday headlined the changes in the financial industry as some institutions move to drop commissions from their products. All very laudable steps. Follow the … Read more
Just a quick note today… With the broohah surrounding the government announcements on legislating to remove commissions from superannuation and investment accounts there are all sorts of comments being made on the likely impacts – some more informed than others. Feedback in a number of online forums suggests that many people are happy with the … Read more
So you come to work, looking forward to a day doing the job you love, and thinking how lucky you are to deal with the people you deal with. For some reason you glance at the front page of the financial papers and these are the headlines glaring back at you. It wouldn’t hurt as … Read more
We mere mortals here in Wealth & Security Planners have been bemusedly scanning the various reactions to Australian Securities & Investments Commission guidelines for the Trustees of super funds to be able to provide advice to their members. In case you missed it, the guide is set out here. The impetus for the change is … Read more
If you are bored enough of your day-to-day, you may have noticed my previous posting which included the text of a note that i sent to the Crikey online newsletter in an attempt to get some sort of intelligent discussion happening in regards to commissions and fees for superannuation. Well, it seems that when you … Read more
For many years various pressure groups around the country have been trying to have legislation brought in to ban the payment of commissions from superannuation accounts. Pressure has mounted even further as links are drawn between commissions generated and the recent failures of MIS scheme operators Great Southern and Timbercorp, as well as the demise … Read more
Having just spent a bit of time setting out the relative aspects of bias that exist in the Financial Planning industry, i thought it relevant to highlight just how prevalent and deeply ingrained this tendency for bias is. Please bear in mind that i am not making a value judgement here – bias will always … Read more