Carolyn Cummins
October 18, 2010
THE war of words over fees charged by financial planners has reached fever pitch with the newly formed NTAA Financial Planners' Association saying more should be done to reduce the costs.
In a stinging attack, Andrew Gardiner, spokesman for the NTAA FPA, said the financial planning sector should ''look seriously at reducing its fees, many of which are driven by greed and self-interest''.
The NTAA was launched late last month to work with tax agents and accountants to help their clients with superannuation advice.
It represents about 7500 accountants and tax agents and was formed in response to what it says are exorbitant fees being charged by financial planners.
The recent Cooper review recommended more restrictions be placed on accountants when offering taxation advice.
The rival Financial Planning Association of Australia has dismissed the new group, saying its formation was ''of little consequence''.
Mr Gardiner said yesterday that he was appalled by a report last week that a client with $1.5 million to invest would be hit with an upfront fee of $26,460 in the first year and annual ongoing fees of almost $10,000.
"The report stated that the example had been drawn from the Commonwealth Bank's 2008 guidelines on upfront and ongoing fees," Mr Gardiner said.
"But one would imagine that similar charges would be made by the other five financial planning institutions - NAB/MLC, Westpac/BT, ANZ/ING AMP and AXA''.
He added that while there are ''many excellent financial planners'', others appear to be ''tied to the six mega banks and their actions put the whole industry in a bad light'' and ''rob it of credibility''.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/financial-planning-fees-war-escalates-20101017-16p5t.html
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