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Clearview and trustee ETSL have raised eyebrows and confused advisers by shifting the popular WealthFoundations super and pension product to investment platform provider HUB24. “It’s like a power plant being run by a battery,” says adviser Jason Poole. “It makes no sense.”

Private markets are worth around $14 trillion globally, ASIC believes. It’s not sure, and that uncertainty hints at the wider problem – private markets, and their effect on public ones, is still largely a mystery.

The US advice system is the largest in the world, and the trend towards more comprehensive advice provision is a significant harbinger of a global shift towards full-service, holistic wealth.

It came as a relief instrument rather than the expected guidance note, but ASIC’s move still managed to give advisers the surety they need to legally use the FSG exemption.

Despite the high levels of demand, there are still very few providers that cater specifically to expats. It’s a problem Edward Cole identified early on, and sought to rectify in three main markets.

It was a long and circuitous route to financial planning for the busy mother, but after seeing the harm financial distress could cause, Amie Baker was determined to help people stand on their own two feet.

It doesn’t matter whether funds mislead investors with intent or not, and it doesn’t matter if other parties were partly to blame. The authorities have had enough of the excuses, and they’re lobbing record fines at transgressors.

AMP will reduce the headcount across its superannuation and North platform businesses and press ahead with changes to its redundancy policies even as the Finance Sector Union warns that “staff deserve better”.

After 21 years building up Pitcher Partners’ wealth management division into a $3.6 billion powerhouse, the high-profile adviser will break from the firm to create an advice group focussed on servicing HNW clients and their families.

The ATO has dug its heels in, and is firm in its belief that upfront advice should remain classed as capital expenditure. But the FAAA did gain a significant concession around tax (financial) advice provision.

It’s odd that of the 12 published submissions to APRA’s consultation on hybrids, not one advocated getting rid of them altogether. Is the regulator trying to protect banks and retail investors from themselves, or is it simply “jumping at shadows”?

The shift in focus from financial advisers to research consultants continues apace, both here and abroad, as asset managers follow the great money management migration.