Boucher says ESSSSuper is considering introducing planners to its contact centre that are able to give limited advice over the phone. The contact centre only gives factual advice, while the member education team provides general advice. Members requiring personal advice are referred to IFFP. “Although it doesn’t relax anything for us to respond, we do need to respond in that it may have created a competitive disadvantage for us in some ways,” Boucher says. “We are looking at potentially bringing on some further planners from IFFP that will get more involved in the limited advice space – they currently operate more in the full financial planning space.” Retail funds are in a stickier spot when it comes to limited personal advice, given their models are built around referrals to financial planners. To offer intra fund advice through their call centre would mean potentially giving up a lucrative part of their business.

Paul Barrett, general manager of distribution at Colonial First State, says advisers are ideally positioned to provide ongoing advice services to their clients. “If it’s a simple enquiry that does not require an element of advice our call centres are trained to be able to respond to basic enquiries, but we are a firm that deals pretty much exclusively with financial planners,” he says. “Ninety percent of our business is through financial advisers, so… our first port of call is to refer clients to their advisers.” Barrett says Colonial has always looked to develop tools that make the advice process more simple and efficient, and will continue to do so.

AMP Financial Services operates under a similar model, whereby all advice queries are passed through to AMP financial planners, or the nominated financial planner for an employer-sponsored scheme. Craig Meller, managing director of AMP Financial Services says most people’s advice needs are broader than just superannuation. “For most people when they’re considering what they’re doing with their super… it’s not a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, because for the client there’s usually an alternative and the question is to what extent do you need to investigate and understand the alternatives,” he says. “We are working hard to make sure we can provide full financial advice at a lower cost point and to be able to do it within the context of a super fund, if we can find a way, we’d be supportive of that too.”