The prevailing issue on most minds of industry associations in the financial services sector at present is the challenge to stay relevant to their members and finding better ways to meet their needs and requirements.
"One of the things you have to do in this world is service your current clients better than your future clients because if you take your eye off the ball with current clients then that's a risk," Investment and Financial Services Association (IFSA) chief executive Richard Gilbert says.
The factors that associations are taking into consideration to remain relevant to their members does not differ from one organisation to the next, according to the consensus among industry associations to which IFA recently spoke.
It is clear members are after an association that offers enhanced learning, builds the standing of the profession in the Australian community and lobbies government for policy reforms.
One of the overriding components in staying relevant is associations' ability to deliver quality education and robust professional standards to their members.
"Building the standing of your profession is about lifting the bar and one of the big ways to lift the bar is education," Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) chief executive Richard Klipin says.
Expanding member education programs will also help to ensure members are equipped to succeed in the changing business environment, Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) chief executive Phil Naylor adds.
This is also the case for the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA). "The industry is changing and we as an organisation have to change as well to meet the changing needs of our members," ASFA chief executive Pauline Vamos says.
Over the past 12 months various industry associations have been busy working towards implementing improved educational standards for their members.
For example, MFAA we have developed courses and programs to educate brokers on a range of areas, Naylor says .
"We have partnered with Ernst & Young to develop a comprehensive anti-money laundering/counter terrorism financing (AML/CTF) program aimed squarely at the broker community," he explains.
"We also teamed with TAFE NSW South Western Sydney Institute to bring brokers a recognition of prior experience (RPE) path to the Certificate IV in Financial Services (Finance and Mortgage Broking)."
The association also wrote an equity release course in consultation with The Senior Australians Equity Release Association of Lenders (SEQUAL).
"Any member under the MFAA who wishes to sell equity release products must now have SEQUAL accreditation," Naylor says.
Self-managed super fund Professionals' Association of Australia (SPAA) entered the arena five years ago and their focus in lifting educational standards in this area is producing results, according to chief executive Andrea Slattery.
"In the last 12 to 18 months people have started to recognise that self managed superannuation funds (SMSF) is actually a profession of advice," she explains.
"It's certainly a much more mature market both for the people that want to get into SMSF and those that give advice in that area."
SPAA has recently developed a new set of standards for SMSF auditors which are due out within the next month.
"This is the first time that auditors have got particular standards for advice at a post graduate level of educational requirements," Slattery says.
SPAA has also been busy setting educational standards for students at university with an SMSF audit course to be delivered through the University NSW (UNSW) next year.
"Two of the deliveries, which are in law and tax, and are going to be delivered through the post-graduate opportunities for SMSF which will give five subjects in the masters and post graduate area for SMSF advice," she says.
SPAA also has an educational register for people who have used the association's standards to develop their own education programs.
"We've got more than 60 on the register now and working very closely with a number of others so we've got about another 10 in the pipeline," Slattery says.
Member education has also been on ASFA's agenda, according to Vamos.
"ASFA has continued to refine, update and tailor our education and training and our learning and development," she says.
"We see our events and training as quality, not just a tick-a-box, and we believe that's important for succession in the industry and we have delivered a lot in this area."
It is almost a year since Vamos arrived at ASFA in September 2007 to take up the position of chief executive and revamp the organisation.
The whole organisational restructure is focused on member forums and providing ASFA member engagement, Vamos says.
"Also our re-branding is a reflection that like many organisations it is time for us to refresh."
On the other hand, the last 12 months for the Financial Planning Association (FPA) has been about rolling out its short form statement of advice (SOA) as well launching its professional indemnity (PI) offering to members, chief executive Jo-Anne Bloch notes.
"The short form SOA has been really critical to our members," she says.
"Our PI service has been enthusiastically received by members, despite one or two who clearly don't get it but that's fine, so that has been a huge result for us because PI has always been problematic."
The FPA has also run a significant certified financial planning (CFP) brand awareness campaign promoting CFP as the gold standard in financial planning, Bloch says
The association also commenced its new associate financial planner accreditation this month.
"That's very significant for us and the first cab off the rank is a new accreditation program for risk advisers," she says.
"What we're doing is making it very clear to the community that there are two types of financial planners that they need to be talking to - an associate financial planner and a CFP."
Educating consumers about the role of brokers and the advantages of using an MFAA accredited member has also been a large focus for MFAA, Naylor adds.
"Consumer awareness of MFAA has risen 50 per cent in the past six to 12 months to the benefit of our members," he says.
The focus on getting younger and skilled advisers into the industry has been at the top of AFA's list over the past year, Klipin says.
The launch of its GenXT initiative aims to bridge the gap between the current generation and the next generation of advisers.
"Younger advisers and industry participants are crying out for assistance with education, skill development, peer to peer networks and establishing their place in the industry," he says.
"AFA's GenXT initiative is trying to meet this industry-wide need."
On the other hand, lobbying the government for policy reform has been an intense part of activities for associations such as IFSA.
The Government's withholding tax cut was one of IFSA's best victories, Gilbert says.
"It was very difficult to get that through the parliament and very difficult to get that on the political agenda so we were delighted when the Senate passed that bill in the final weeks of June," he says.
"It was more than just the monetary value of the concession; it was a signal to the world that Australia is open for business so that was a major victory for us."
Another favourable outcome that IFSA has been a part of achieving for its members is getting one step closer to full legislative backing for electronic commerce, Gilbert says.
"That missing link was addressed by Senator Sherry recently and ASIC gave us the green light for sending financial statements electronically and that's a massive saving and something that really matters to our members."
The NSW government released the draft National Finance Broking Legislation in November last year and the MFAA had significant input into this draft legislation, Naylor says.
"The framework was largely a reflection of the MFAA's own code of practice," he says.
ASFA's work in the anti-money laundering (AML) space, both in terms of guidelines and ongoing lobbying, has been instrumental to members, Vamos says.
"We think the risk paper that we issued to members was one of a kind and a very important part of what we've done over the past 12 months," Vamos says.
Furthermore, the work that ASFA is currently undertaking around fund member engagement and the value of advice continues, she says.
"The delivery of affordable, accessible advice is absolutely vital. Cost effective single issue advice is where we've got to go," she says.
This is also on the agenda for the FPA, Bloch says.
"Members want us to continue to focus on the value of advice and promoting their professionalism to the community," she says.
The FPA is in the final phase of its creative concepts for the third stage of their value of advice campaign which is scheduled to roll out by September.
On the drawing board for AFA for the remainder of 2008 is lifting the bar on adviser's client engagement skills, Klipin says.
"PS146 has created a whole bunch of qualified and highly technically competent members of the profession but when you sit in front of a client you need a bedside manner," he says.
"So the marketplace has been crying out for issues around client engagement skills and AFA is working on that."
The number one issue going forward for IFSA is adequacy of superannuation, according to Gilbert.
"The industry has been through a significant amount of red tape and regulation change and it's time now to look at the adequacy issues of the low and middle income earners of Australia and lobby strongly for that," he says.
As a result, IFSA recently released more research on the macro economics of national savings and the impact higher levels of household savings can have on the economy.
While associations have been working hard to meet their members' needs and requirements, over the past 12 months most have also experienced growth in membership numbers.
The AFA's membership is approaching 1100 and is growing at around 28 per cent per annum, Klipin says.
"The AFA membership base has predominantly been the boomer generation however an increasing number of our members that are joining, around 60 per cent, are Gen Xers," he says.
SPAA's current membership of 1250 has experienced a 20 per cent growth since November last year, Slattery reveals.
"Of the new members joining, there has been quite a large increase in the legal and administration profession joining over the past 12 months, so it's now starting to filter out and look more representative of who actually does advise in the industry," she says.
"Stockbrokers and people who write risk and insurance are also now starting to join as members because they have an advice capacity across SMSFs in some way shape or form."
The MFAA currently has 13,814 members and has experienced growth in membership since changing its name from the Mortgage Industry Association of Australia (MIAA) to recognise the growing number of equipment and finance brokers, Naylor says.
"This expanded our member base and allowed us to cater for the wider broking community," he adds.
IFSA's diverse membership currently stands at 130 members and is growing at around 10 per cent per year, according to Gilbert.
"The members that are joining are boutique fund managers and some of the supporting members out of the services part of the industry," he says.
ASFA's membership has grown in some areas and changed in others, Vamos says.
"At the moment we're starting to see a lot more individual members join from all sectors of the industry including academics and regulators," she says.
"There was certainly consolidation but there are more service providers coming in as well so there's been a growth in numbers."
While the FPA has increased the amount of practitioner members by about 3 per cent, its broad membership of 12,000 is currently static, Bloch says.
"We've put on about 300 new financial planners but we've also had number retire or leave because they've changed industries," she says.
"Our membership is fairly broad it's static because we lose almost as many members as we gain but that's also because we have a lot of general members," she says.
