The “isolation” of running a financial advice business

At Fourth Line, we often hear about the challenges faced by small to medium sized licensees, and advice practices within these licensees.

With the plethora of changes over recent years – the FASEA education standards, breach reporting obligations, changes to ongoing fee arrangements, DDO, etc – individual advisers and licensee compliance teams can sometimes feel overwhelmed trying to stay on top of everything.

In a recednt article (see https://www.professionalplanner.com.au/2022/07/quite-isolating-van-expansion-looks-to-improve-small-practice-networking) Cameron Garrett, from Macquarie, sums it up well when he says … “One of the key themes we continue to hear …. is the value of that community. It’s really challenging running an advice business and we know it can be quite isolating.”

The isolation is real and can lead to a sense of feeling lost in the “compliance wilderness” and “not knowing what you don’t know”.

This is one of the main reasons licensees of all sizes engage with Fourth Line as their preferred advice quality partner – having an independent “source of truth” review and evaluate the advice process individual advisers are following, and then highlighting any potential issues before they are presented to a client. This helps mitigate financial risks associated with breach reporting and general licensee obligations for the benefit of all – the licensee, the adviser, & the client.

Compliance teams become coaches, helping advisers develop strong advice behaviours through the data driven insights Fourth Line provides. This builds trust, enhances the reputation of the advice firm and licensee, and avoids costly client remediation programs.

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Fourth Line is a rigorous RegTech risk management and compliance system for advice practices, dealer groups and other wealth management participants. Fourth Line uses algorithmic approaches to simplify the complexity in advice reviews whilst maintaining human oversight, empowering compliance teams to coach and develop strong advice behaviors through data driven insights from advanced analytics for adviser, practice/dealer group and industry benchmark comparison with centralised document storage and access to meet regulatory needs. 

For information email: info@fourth-line.com.au