Industry fund urges urgency on DBFO implementation | Australian Markets

Main industry fund, Relaxation has urged the Authorities to make passage of its financial advice reforms a post-Price range precedence arguing they’re needed to offer a pathway for superannuation funds to cost-effectively increase the scope and attain of financial advice.

Relaxation has used its pre-Price range submission filed with Treasury to state that it believes everybody ought to be capable of entry easy, handy financial advice, “especially lower and middle income Australians like our members”.

The Authorities has scheduled handing down the Price range on 25 March.

“Many of our members would simply not be able to access advice if it wasn’t available through Rest – so expanding financial advice within super will help more of our members make informed decisions to improve their retirement outcomes,” it mentioned.

“Rest offers digital advice tools, which have allowed us to expand the reach of our financial advice service to our members. The DBFO reforms give us the opportunity to further expand the service we provide our members.”

The Relaxation submission additionally recommends the Authorities legislates to permit superannuation contributions to be made into retirement part superannuation accounts to mirror the fact that people are transferring out and in of retirement.

“Our expertise working with our members reveals that retirement is a versatile transition, typically involving motion out of and back into the workforce, and ongoing work into retirement.

“This reality of working patterns in retirement is inconsistent with the binary nature of the superannuation system, which does not allow contributions to be made to products in the retirement phase,” it mentioned.

“Rest recommends the Government remove the existing prohibition on making contributions to existing account-based pensions (including for retirees aged over 75 years) in order to simplify the system, provide more flexibility and choice for retirees to manage their retirement income streams and reduce the need for multiple superannuation accounts.”

“Industry modelling suggests this change would remove duplicate fees for about 100,000 retirees,” the submission mentioned.

“Rest acknowledges that considerable consultation would be required on such changes to these products but believes that these kinds of innovations to simplify the system and products available that work for the majority of working Australians will lead to better retirement outcomes.”