Transcript

Matt Heine (MH):

Hi, welcome to the show. Today, I'm absolutely thrilled to have Sarah Abood joining us to talk about all of the amazing things that she's up to now at the FAAA. Welcome, Sarah.

Sarah Abood (SA):

Oh, thanks, Matt. Great to be here.

MH:

We haven't actually spent a lot of time together, so I'm really looking forward to this chat. Lot of ground to make up. Actually. To kick off, as we often do, love to just hear a little bit about your journey into financial services and how you've ended up as CEO of the FAAA

SA:

Financial Services has been a very long journey for me. I actually started in an age that I probably wouldn't to reveal, but over 25 years ago, I'll say that with the a and p. So I moved from Tassie to Sydney and started quite a long period of time at a and p where I did a range of different roles, but I really importantly met my first financial advisor while I was working for AMP and they set me straight on a few things about budgeting and goal setting and so on. And I've worked in the sector ever since in various different roles. I spent a while obviously, as I said, with AMP, a little bit of time with Rothschild, some time with Westpac, colonial First State, bt. So a lot of the usual starters if you like, and then a role at Fidelity. And then I finished off my MBA and I moved across to being the CEO of a self licenced firm that I was actually a client of. And they were telling me what was happening with their firm and that they were looking to appoint ACEO. And I said, oh, that sounds interesting. I've just finished my MBA, maybe I should throw my ad in the ring. And I did and I got the job. So that was when I started working more formally on the advice side.

MH:

I was going to say, because up until that point, it sounds like it was very much on the product side across asset management platforms and insurance.

SA:

That's right, yes, and super funds at CFS. So a reasonable grounding of if you like, how the sausage gets made on the other side. I did work with advisors in many of those roles, but I've found it very useful to have that background and exposure to the product side and the value chain and how that works because I think it helps us understand the product issuers and we can help the product issuers understand how to work with advisors in the best way, what it is that advisors need, what they're looking for, and so on. That role as CEO lasted a bit over nine years actually. So I had a long stint running a practise and trying to come to grips with FOFA and producing fdss and all sorts of things in that time. Did some contracts and this particular role at the then FPA came up.

I knew some of the people here at a really exciting time when we started talking about the role and what the ask was, what the opportunity was, it was just fantastic. I think the profession is at such an important inflexion point right now. There's been a lot of change and there's a sense that things are starting to shift the other way, starting to shift in a positive direction for advisors. Advisors are being recognised as professionals, and that's not just empty words. The government is seeing that regulators are seeing that. So I think it's a great time to be in advice

MH:

Just catching up with some other industry people before our chat. And that comment was actually pretty explicit that both the liberal government and the labour government now refer to our industry as a profession, which has been a hard road to get there. But what was the watershed moment or when do you think that finally clicked with both sides?

SA:

That's an interesting point, Matt, because I think it's been in somewhat of an evolution because we had the better advice act. We had education standards, we had the exam. There's been a whole lot of the pieces that you need to be able to call yourself a profession have been implemented in the last, let's say four and a half years. But often public perception lags the reality. So I'd say we can technically say and assert that we are a profession technically and have been for a few years. But what I think is changing to me, I feel like it dated from the start of the quality of advice review when there was an implicit recognition in putting that review together, that financial advice was a good thing, that people would be better off if they could benefit from financial advice. And it was a problem that not enough Australians can access and afford the advice that they need. And I think that has been really important in shifting the perceptions and the dialogue, not just of our own profession, but also of the government, the regulators, the product issuers, the lawyers, even the consumer associations have all made that shift. I think now

MH:

We're definitely going to come back and talk about QAR and your role in that and where you see it going. But before we go there, I'd love to understand from you maybe machinations of how you put together two very large longstanding industry associations. And I guess how it all really, the conversations have been going for many years. Years. What was it that actually finally made the two organisations sit down properly and start to map out what a combined future might look like?

SA:

Yeah, Matt, I think you're right. I've certainly been told by many people that those conversations have been had on and off for a very long time, but there were always good reasons at the time why they couldn't proceed. I think there were two big drivers, well, maybe three big drivers. So one was that the membership of the two associations had in the past probably been somewhat different. There was a perception that the A membership was more focused on life insurance and that the FPA membership was more focused on a kind of traditional wealth kind of role that had been becoming less and less true. And certainly when we got to a point when we could look at the actual data and demographics of the members, they're very, very similar. So I think the previous concerns that members would've had different goals or maybe a group wouldn't have felt represented was no longer true.

And that was an important success factor because I'm sure you are extremely well aware that the success of any merger is in large part down to the cultural fit and an alignment of values and so on. Financials are really important, but they're not enough on their own. That sense that there was a strong cultural fit, strong alignment in goals was important and we were able to tick that. The other thing was, of course, the external environment that we all find ourselves in, and the key piece that the number of advisors had crashed, we down famously, almost 46% now on where we were back in 2019, that has an impact. It has a very direct impact on financials of organisations that have advisors. As members, we'd both been suffering from some level of membership outflow, although less than the overall profession. Still, you can't escape a tide that is that strong.

So there was financial pressure there, and there were very clearly synergies and very obvious ones like premises for example. There were quite a lot of synergies that we thought members would get better value from the two organisations coming together. So that was number two. But the third one was the most important, which I'm leading up to, and that's impact of advocacy. Certainly in my first months in the role, I was getting feedback from government, from regulators, from all sorts of people who were very important to us that we were not aligned as a sector. It was put to me in fact that we were a rabble, that we were always arguing and couldn't come up with a consistent position. And that in the past, the government had perhaps had a view that if we couldn't decide what we wanted, then they'd do it for us.

So there was a very strong desire on the part of both organisations to be more effective in advocacy, to not have that accusation levelled at us to ensure that we could build a coalition and a united voice. And that was probably the number one reason why we got serious about talks very soon after I joined and we were able to go to members within nine months, we literally launched almost exactly a year ago. Year ago. We went to members on the first day of spring last year with a proposal that we should merge and asking them what they thought.

MH:

Congratulations on your one year anniversary

SA:

Almost. Yeah,

MH:

They're all really good points. You think when you look at a merger of any businesses, whether that's financial planning or just business in general, culture is absolutely key. And if you think back through those early discussions, once you understood what the objectives were and the reasons, what were the cultural aspects from the A FFA and from the FBA that were sort of non-negotiables, when you were sitting at the table, what were the things that the A wanted to make sure were kept sacred and vice versa?

SA:

Of course, there were a few, as there always are from the a FFA side, there was a really strong desire to ensure that life risk in particular would continue to be prioritised and supported by the new association. I mean, as I said, that was actually important on both sides because there were a number of specialist firms who were members of members, the FPA and a number of firms were members of both because they kind of wanted to really ensure that the voice of life insurance was strong and the importance of that sector, not just to members, but really importantly to consumers, was going to consider continue to be supported. It's well known that the number of advisors that practise in this space is quite low. It's probably somewhere of the order of register would write at least a couple of policies a year, but the number of advisors who specialise in that space and actually have a substantial practise is lower still.

It's probably less than a thousand. There's a number of different ways that you can cut the data, but certainly that function is so critically important. It is an important goal for the F AAA to focus in that area and support it and grow the sector because we think it's critical for our profession and for consumers. So that was really important for FAAA. From the FPA side, the designations and education was really, really important. So the CFP is a designation that the FPA was offering, and the F AAA continues to offer. It's a really important part of what our association does. It's a global designation. We have almost 5,000 holders of that designation, and they were very, very keen to ensure that that designation would continue to be supported and positioned as lead designation. So there were two examples of things that were really important on each side, but interestingly, both sides were really, really focused on professionalism and ensuring that we were acting as the voice of a profession, not an industry, not a job, and specifically the profession of advice and specifically for financial advisors. So that was interestingly and not negotiable on both sides. So it didn't become a problem during negotiations. That is the United Voice is the United Voice of Financial Advisors. That's what we're taking to Canberra and that's what this association represents.

MH:

And as a marketer by background, the FAAA obviously important to take cues or a nod if you like, to the histories of both brands. How did that come about? What was the process like? The FPA is a global brand global designation as you mentioned. What were some of the issues you faced into?

SA:

We made an early decision that we would have to change the name. It couldn't be either of the heritage associations, and that was important to signal that this is a reset. It is a new association. It's not a re-skinned or a re-badged old association. So we knew that we needed a new name. We knew that it had to have advice in it somewhere, who we represent, that's who we support. And then we started to go looking. We tested a huge number of names, and the key part of that was a survey of our members. We worked with a really good brand agency to help us refine the options, but our members responded in droves actually to that survey about what was important to them that the new name would represent. Did they have an idea for a new name? What sort of things would they not want to see represented in the name?

So that took quite a while. That was something that we did during the open consultation period. Then we had a shortlist that we did all the back checking on, and interestingly, we found that there wasn't a single acronym that wasn't being used by somebody else. There was an early name that we were very close to launching and didn't because we discovered that a member business actually had the exact same acronym. And we thought, well, we couldn't do that. We couldn't compete with a member specifically, and we ended up coming down to two. There was a lot of talk, a lot of investigation, and the f AAA was the one that came up as best representing what members wanted to see. There was a potential issue because there's another association that has the same acronym, it's the flight attendants, but because they operate in a completely different space, we had different domains, different handles and so on. We felt that that was something that we could manage, particularly given that the FPA, for example, had that problem already. So the FPA technically competed with the Fire Protection Authority and the Family Planning Association among others. But certainly we had advice and there was a strong view that as long as you're in a completely different space, there's very little concern that you will compete or that anyone will be confused. So that's where we ended up with the F triple eight

MH:

And the logo consisting of three speech bubbles. Presumably that's around the dialogue and conversation both within the industry with the regulator and with all stakeholders.

SA:

That's exactly right. So once we'd settled on the name, we asked the agency to help us come up with a logo and a colour palette and all those lovely things. You have a lot of fun with crayons in marketing that would really speak to what we wanted to represent. And that idea of a dialogue is something that we felt was a real winner because it is a lot about, we talked a lot about a United Voice, we talked a lot about what are the messages that members want to want to give and how do we need to deliver those messages and engage with other stakeholders. So it's all about conversations, all about dialogue. So we really love that idea of the speech bubbles.

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MH:

And that's probably a good segue. You mentioned that you went through the hard work of getting the associations together and you're now a united organisation with a real focus on obviously members and also advocacy. One year ago, Michelle Levy was out talking to industry, starting to form up her views. How involved was the F AAA in those early conversations? Are you happy with where it's landed? Are you happy with the current timeline and where do you see going in the future?

SA:

Yeah, so we were very deeply involved right from the beginning, both as the FPA and the AFA and later as the F aaa. Right from the start, we consulted on the terms of reference and we had so, so many meetings, Matt, I can't tell you, with Michelle herself, with her team at treasury, with groups of licensees, groups of advisors, groups including many product issuers, insurers, super funds and so on. And those meetings go on. So there's been a really very substantial amount of work that's been done on what do we need to do to get high quality, affordable advice to the Australian consumer. It's such a complex area that we all practise in. The regulations are proverbially extremely difficult to untangle. I am still kind of amused, not really very surprised that the Law Reform Commission review of the Corps Act and so on, taking them three years, they're doing great work, they're working really hard, but it's taken them quite a while to try to work out how we can simplify the regulations.

And that's one of the reasons the QAR has been so challenging, I think because of the complexity, but I think what's kept us all is a genuine belief in the goals of that review. It is really important that we get advice to consumers. We need to get the cost down to consumers. And our focus there has been getting the cost to practise down because that's obviously a great way to reduce the ultimate cost to consumers. And the review overall I think was a great piece of work. I would really commend anyone to read that document. It's big. It's almost a hundred thousand words, but it's worth it. I think it's very clearly written. I think the proposals are well argued and in principle we support the proposals. Where we are getting down to the nitty gritty right now is, well, exactly what do we mean by in principle, how would these play out in reality?

And for us, there are some that are just no-brainers and we should just do them and the sooner we can do them, the better. And those are the proposals that have fallen into stream one of the governance response called the quick wins. We think that's a good name for them because they'll have an impact very quickly. And those are things like getting rid of fee disclosure statements, which I don't think it was well understood even at government level that it's often simply impossible to produce a compliant fee disclosure statement because of timing of payments and ICTs and so on, or tc, is that right? I might've got that acronym slightly wrong, but you know what I mean. Those tax things that are annoying, that mean that you can't match the amount by exact dollar, making it easier to disclose. fsgs simplifying substantially the statement of advice confirming that the design and distribution reporting obligations need to be substantially simplified.

We're operating under a relief at the moment from asic, but that needs to be continued. There are a few others, but those things are really critically important. The other one I do want to flag is standardisation of fee consent. At the moment that that review is sitting in quick wins, it's probably the number one issue member started raising with me when I took this job on that It's become almost impossible to meet the requirements of that particular law. And we think that there is a real opportunity there to do better on the technology front. We want more than just a standard form at a fee consent. We want something that is able to be consented to by clients in an electronic way and able to be pushed to whoever needs to see the outcome in a really quick and simple and automated way so that advisors are not spending months and months engaging with clients to sign forms that they thought they'd already signed in a particular way on a particular day. The pain of that is just huge for advice practises, and I don't think it's necessarily well understood even now by product issue is just how onerous that obligation is. So that's the quick wins that Stream won, and we're very hopeful that that is going to see draught legislation in the current country.

MH:

Client data warehouse that connects your CRM and other tech systems with Netwealth. Make it make sense. Discover a world of client data@netwealth.com au slash woo. And the other obviously big part of it's the oa. And with fee consent fee renewal processes as a platform provider trying to support it, you don't need to tell us how complex it is. And whilst it'll be disappointing to have to throw out three years of the hard work, I think if we can simplify that, the compliance burden on practise will drop significantly. But SOAs, I think there's clearly a desire to shorten SOAs. People are talking about digital SOAs. The risk is however that licensees ASLs are still required to manage within a framework. They need to make sure that the advice was appropriate, that fees are being disclosed, that the appropriate disclaimers are being given. Is there a risk that QR happens? We don't actually see a big reduction in the link for complexity of SOAs because you have to still tick so many of the boxes.

SA:

Yes, there's been a lot of discussion about that very point. You are probably aware that we work with a group of associations called the Joint Associations Working Group, and that's to build a consensus on matters like this so that we can give the government a clear steer on what industry believes is going to work. And on this one, we've been working really closely with the licensees for the reasons you've just outlined. The original proposal that Michelle put forward was to entirely remove the requirement and the minister was not too comfortable with that. He accepted the argument that these documents ought to be substantially simplified and much shorter and much more focused on empowering the consumer, ensuring that they're giving consent, much less focused on disclosure. But licensees, they have their businesses on the line. If these things don't work, they think, of course as you would expect them to, they worry about what would happen if there's an AFCA complaint or a PI claim in the future.

On what basis would I defend myself? So we've also been engaging really closely with AFCA who've been great on this to understand what they would look at. And I think it is important for all to be really clear that it's the file that gets looked at, not just the SOA, if there are problems in the future, and there's still a really clear requirement for adequate to be kept when it comes to the statement of advice itself, the requirements in the law, I think it's chapter 7.7 in the Corpse Act, they're actually not that extensive. They're not that onerous. It's what happens after the law is passed that has led to these a hundred page plus proverbially behemoth documents and a whole lot of disclosure. And that's been, I think in large part a response to past regulatory attention and cases that have been decided in a sense that, well, I've had something go against me.

I'm never going to let that happen again. I'm going to add a page to my statement of advice template to ensure it can't happen. Again. That's sort of in large part why we've ended up where we are licensees have that concern, but they genuinely want to deliver on this objective of QAR. And what we've been working on as part of that group is ensuring that licensees feel they have a fair and objective test that would be applied to that advice, that the advice wouldn't be being judged with a benefit of hindsight in a rear vision mirror. And that's what gives them confidence potentially to get rid of the safe harbour steps, for example, and get rid of some of the other elements of these documents that are proving onerous and not helping consumers. So what we're working on that will be in the regulations is a principles-based regulation, not a regulation that is very detailed.

It does recognise and defer to the professional capabilities and the professional judgement of the advisor while still giving some guidance on what are the key areas that we would expect to see covered in a document. The other key element of all this in our view is asic, we really want to ensure that ASIC is being engaged early on this because the last thing anyone wants is to be the test case of having simplified a statement of advice and being pinged for leaving something out, for example. So that's another reason that we're working very collaboratively on this and trying to engage early and ensure that the goals of QAR can really be delivered. I should emphasise as well that there's no have to about all of this in terms of I'm not required to massively cut my SOAs. Certainly that's a goal and we hope that it will substantially simplify the obligations, but there are already a range of ways in which you can meet the requirement, and once licensees have got confidence that it really is simplified, we should see more. I mean, you're probably aware that we've been promoting a video SOA or digital SOA, as you mentioned earlier, as a way of delivering the content to consumers. So I think there is a lot that we can do as a profession as well.

MH:

And I think maybe just to dig down that a little bit, because your point's a very valid one, and if I was a licensee sitting there, I don't want to be that test case and until is a test case to have confidence in the process, I think is going to be incredibly challenging. And is it a matter of walking back from the existing SOAs or is it a matter of starting from scratch and building it up? How do you see licensees actually approaching this and making sure that even under a principle-based framework, that they've got the comfort to actually roll something out across 2, 3, 400 advisors?

SA:

Yeah, so I think it is that engagement with the regulator, that engagement with AFCA and an assurance that a particular proposal or a particular way of engaging on this document will accepted is another matter that we are working on. So ASIC have been reluctant to provide specific guidance on matters like this in the past because they feel that they can't give a guarantee that they wouldn't take action in future where there were matters of client detriment, for example, involved. We are hoping that ASIC could be persuaded to either engage in the process that we're in now alongside licensees and professional associations and so on to come up with something that they would be comfortable to endorse. There's another option that we've canvassed with ASIC and with the minister in the past as well, and that's to give ASIC the ability to provide something a little bit analogous to the assurances you get from the ATO.

So you might want a private ruling, for example, from the ATO, if you have a particular product or strategy that you're not too sure how it fits into the legislation and you want some comfort before you launch a product or start promoting something to clients, we would love to see something analogous to that available so that ASIC could say, look, if you work with this template, then for example, we wouldn't take action based on the template itself being flawed, although we might still take action if we believe that a particular document that was based on it didn't meet the need for the consumer. So we do think that there's opportunities there for us to work in a more productive way with the regulator that will give our profession more confidence to innovate.

MH:

Speaking of innovation, we might just look back to the digital or video s OA for a moment, relatively low take up a couple of firms really getting behind it, but it certainly hasn't had broad adoption. What would you say is the main barriers or reasons that it hasn't had broader adoption?

SA:

Look, interestingly, it hasn't been, at least not to my face, no one said they think it's a terrible idea and most advisors and licensees we engage with think it's a great idea and believe that it is a much more engaging process and way for consumers to see the content and also gives advisors in a lot of ways more protection because a recording of that video delivery of advice is a really, really clear unambiguous record of how the advice has been delivered and that the client said, yes, I want to do this. But I think there's a couple of issues behind the scenes, particularly for the larger licensees, and one of them is around really wanting certainty that the format itself would not be a problem. So ASIC has said, and they're on the record in saying that they wouldn't have a problem with the statement of advice being delivered by video because they have a technology neutral stance that something would not be not compliant merely because it was delivered digitally.

But the other factor that's real is the large investment in current processes and systems and templates. So in order to move away from that or perhaps start moving to a more kind of client engaging format, you do have to walk away from a whole bunch of templates and processes that have been in place and we're probably expensive to produce for a long time. So certainly my sense is for some of the larger licensees in particular, they'd like to see some more certainty as to how these would be regarded. The last factor I'd raise is probably the compliance people themselves are used to reviewing Word documents and Excel spreadsheets and so on, and getting a file delivered in that way. And it's still new for many compliance staff to say, well, how would I review something that's been delivered as a video recording? Now that's not to say that they not for it. In fact, a lot of the people who've attended the workshops so far have been compliant staff and they really like the idea. Certainly the idea I think is good and has had a lot of support. Implementation is going to take a while as it does for anything new, but we'll absolutely continue to support and focus on this because we think it's good for clients and it's good for advisors as well. Yeah,

MH:

The other point is a good one that you raised as well. We were thinking about that and chatting to a few groups the other day about that exact issue. And potentially that's where transcription services, generative AI can assist because too, to watch a 45 minute review or advice delivery session compared to reading a file note, very different on an individual's time and how many files they can actually review. So maybe it's just a matter of time and waiting for the technology to catch up to automate a lot of that transcription service.

SA:

Oh, look, Matt couldn't agree more, and I think this is a really early fantastic use case of some of the ais that are out there. They don't even have to be generative. You can train an AI to look for particular things, and the transcription technology that's available now is radically better than it was even two years ago. So I really agree with that. I think technology is going to really be our friend in this path and will certainly make it a lot easier in the future.

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MH:

Sarah, I know you love your tech. There's a few things that the AAA are working on at the moment. What are some of the other things you've got going on behind the scenes?

SA:

There's a lot to tech, right? It's a big topic and there's a few key themes that are really clear to me that we need to be working on to help make advisors lives easier. And by the way, ultimately get the cost to provide advice down. It tends to start with data for all of these things. Any serious investment in process automation or changing the way we engage with product issuers and so on has got to start on a basis that the data's right and it's up to date. And I think we are potentially burning a whole bunch of money in time as an industry right now, and I'm not talking about the profession, talking about the industry that engages in financial data because everyone's building their own poles and wires. If you think of the analogy of a power station, you only need one set of poles and wires.

You can have a whole lot of retail power companies and generators, but it's inefficient to build a bunch of them. You need them to be really good, you need them to be really reliable, but you really only want to build one. And the analogy for data would be to have a form of data standards that applies for financial data across the industry. It's easy and quick to say it's very, very hard to achieve, but we know that other industries have been able to make great strides in that space. And one that I've looked to a few times is mortgage broking where there's an organisation called LXi that manages data standards and is a big part of how straight through processing has been enabled and it's enabled the banks to deal with mortgage brokers broker. Obviously it is a very different kettle of fish because our industry as well as our profession is far more fragmented than the mortgage market.

But nevertheless, it's a model that I think we should be looking at. There are other models from banking and the super as well that I think we can learn from. And a key one there is SuperStream, which was an initiative that enabled all employers to communicate with the ATO and with all super funds. Now, it was by no means super easy to set up and imagine the power that advice stream would have for a start. We'd be able to solve fee consent, standardisation very, very quickly and easily over time. You enable straight through processing, you enable client data to be kept up to date, not pointing time anymore. I'm talking many years out. Of course these things are not

MH:

Quick. Maybe not Sarah, maybe not. But

SA:

There's a couple of initiatives. So there's the consumer data, which our Minister, minister Jones is responsible for. There's an expressed intent that extend across the whole financial industry that's super funds. Ultimately, life insurers, platform providers would all be required to make their data available via CDR. Another area where data's critical at the moment is the tax tax portal and the Centrelink portal where we have a version of access via proda. But the role that it's asking advisors to play is not one that many advisors want to play. Not everyone wants to take on accountability for keeping all their clients Centrelink details up to date. So there's a couple of ways we could go there. We could try to get those data sets made available via CDR. We could potentially, when I say it could be the association, it could be some other player in the profession could become an accredited data recipient and enable advisors to be trusted advisors and access the data that way.

So of course we are directly advocating we need that data, but at the moment we're blocked because essentially the message is that it will be expensive to give advisors access in a role on the tax portal that's not a tax agent, for example. So I guess I'm using that as an example because probably the tax office portal is the number one most raised issue with me by members as to a source of data that they really, really need to do their job. And it's incredibly frustrating to be blocked. It's adding time and cost and manual processes. So yeah, data is the foundation and I think that's an area where we can potentially help as a not-for-profit, we can try to help enable the whole industry to get more efficient and better in that area.

MH:

And Sadia, you touched on it a couple of times, either within the current regime and something that we're working through at the moment is the definition of a recipient being an authorised advisor is currently we believe restricted to an individual and not to a practise as an example. So all very well providing the access to the data, but if only one person out of 10 can actually do something with it, it's not nearly as useful as it needs to be.

SA:

And look, Matt, I'll raise another issue on that very point because AM M-L-C-T-F is also a big bug bear for a lot of advisors. We do have that obligation. There are a lot of manual processes going on to meet that obligation. Driver's licences being photocopied and emailed around. Does my head in partly because of the inefficiency, but also because of the cybersecurity implications. I think there's opportunities, there are a number of digital solutions that are already available, but there are some really smart ones that are coming up that we are looking at now because we think that there's big opportunities for us as a profession to streamline A-M-L-C-T-F. I'm a bit worried about that area too, because in the not too distant future, the state agents and gold bullion brokers and all sorts of other people will have an obligation similar to ours that they don't have right now. And I don't want them soaking up all the capacity. So that's another area that we'd like to look at soon. Another area where I think there's big opportunities for advisors to save money.

MH:

Sarah, unfortunately we're about to run out of time, but I guess my last question for you, in addition to all of the things that we've spoken about for the last half hour or 45 minutes, what's next?

SA:

Well, we're merged association and we're through the process right now really deeply of going through what are our strategic aims and imperatives for the next period. We're about to launch a review of our policy platform with members, and that's really, really important. We really want to hear from members about what do they want this combined association to be focused on? What are the big issues? And that will set our policy direction for some years to come. In terms of strategy more broadly, probably my big three are firstly rebuilding the numbers of the profession. And we've crashed in numbers. We must for so many reasons, get our numbers not only back to where they were but higher so that we can provide the service that Australian consumers need. So that's critical. A lot of what we've talked about today is my number two, which is making it easier and cheaper and more efficient to provide advice.

The practise of advice, if you like, getting those costs down, automating, getting digital efficiencies into businesses and just getting the cost down to be an advisor. All sorts of stuff fits there. Digital, the asset levy, you name it. That's a big one. And the third one is really about reengaging with consumers and ensuring that we are telling the story of the great impact that financial advice has on people's lives. We know that people are better off, they're more confident about the future. They're happier, they're less stressed. There's so much proof from so many surveys that financial advice is a great good for society and for the individuals who avail themselves of it, we need to be out there telling that story. So those are my big three.

MH:

Sarah, thank you for your time. Congratulations on achieving what many thought was the unachievable, putting the AFA and the FBA together and creating that single voice, which I agree is so critical, particularly now as we go through such a major change in the industry, get it back to its glory days, and really looking forward to seeing what you and the team are able to do over the next 12 to 24 months.

SA:

Thanks a lot, Matt.