The Financial Planning Association (FPA) has promised to push on with its five-year strategic plan to secure the future of the industry in Australia.

Its 2020 annual report says the plan it announced in May is focused on FPA members, advocacy work and building awareness of the benefits of financial planning to consumers.

“This year has been about repositioning the FPA to be agile to respond to the pressures of the broader industry and focused on being able to be of maximum service to our members,” Chairman Marisa Broome said in the report.

“The FPA’s MAC (Members, Advocacy, Consumers) strategy will shape the direction of the association to be more agile to opportunities in the current environment.”

On advocacy, FPA says it will keep on pushing the Government to consider reducing red tape and duplication of regulation in the financial advice industry.

“Our members told us that the cost of regulation was among their greatest concerns and the FPA policy platform is designed to reduce the compliance burden on practices,” Ms Brome said. “Reducing the regulatory impost on financial planners will have a significant and positive impact on their ability to service more Australians.

“There is much work to be done to make advice more accessible and the policy platform establishes a critical foundation from which to begin achieving our ambitions for the profession.”

FPA again warned the industry is seeing an exodus of planners, the result of significant regulatory reforms undertaken by the Government before the Hayne royal commission made more suggestions to improve the profession.

Citing figures from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), FPA says there has been a 15% fall in advisers listed on the regulator’s register in the last financial year.

“We expect this to continue to affect FPA member numbers and the wider financial planner population over the coming year,” CEO Dante De Gori said.

Click here for the annual report.