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Australia, UK partner to procure well-regulated financial markets
Following its inaugural meeting in September 2025, the second UK-Australia Joint Financial Regulatory Forum took place this week, with Australia remaining vocal about placing greater emphasis on governance and asset valuation of private markets.
Count takes 30% stake in Brisbane advice firm
Count has agreed to acquire a 30% stake in Brisbane-based accounting and financial advice firm Apiary Financial, continuing its push to expand its equity partnership network while reporting stronger first-quarter earnings.
Audit quality continues to fall short: ASIC
The corporate regulator has called for improvements in audit quality and financial reporting after its latest surveillance found companies, including superannuation funds, are still not getting the fundamentals right.
ETFs entering 3.0 era: JPMAM
JPMAM believes thematic ETFs may become a thing of the past as actively managed ETFs become more prevalent.
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Expert Feed
When geopolitics becomes a portfolio risk
Geopolitics is back - again - and Australian investors can no longer treat it as distant background noise.
Does association membership still matter?
With all the changes the advice sector has experienced in recent years, such as regulatory reform and increased education and professional standards ...
Digital assets and where they stand in 2026
So far in 2026 digital assets have captured the headlines largely for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't tell the full story.
Rethinking default design in a changing market environment
The evolution underway in the US DC system highlights the value of periodically reassessing default design assumptions.
Featured Profile
Jacqueline Fernley
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
ARC POINT OCIO PTY LTD
ARC POINT OCIO PTY LTD
Jacqueline Fernley is a self-confessed nerd, a market animal and as of this year, her own boss. Riddhima Talwani writes.
The Financial Standard podcast Tune in each week as we discuss the latest developments in Australia's wealth management industry. |  |
When will the banks and ASIC get it? It's about a sales culture. Re-training, particularly if it applies just to advisers, cures nothing.
I know a few bank advisers. If left to their own devices, and to be paid a decent salary without sales/points justification, these folks will give good advice.
But the old Tied Office "push push" mentality is still there, now mixed with bank culture of flog, flog, flog-product is king. Follow the bonus trail all the way to the top.
If they haven't started, the banks should go to a fee for advice model on all advice scenarios, with a % of the fee to the advisers - say 65%. Encourage advisers to build a business the bank, and don't look at them as just another talking head flogging their products.
Should be a no brainer. But those management bonuses, based on production, replicating the old tied agent industry some of us experienced, is too ingrained.
Management has snouts in the trough. An easy way of counting those nostrils is to count the management types on the annual conference tour.
Better still, separate product from sales, industry wide.
Where has common sense gone? Bill Brown can see it, in the eyes of a normal person it is not ok to place clients into high risk products without their knowledge or authorization. It is also not ok to blatantly lie to their clients and make false and misleading statements. You don't have to train advisers that it is not ok to do these things. Start on why this is allowed to happen in the first place.