The days of overlong, legalistic and unreadable statements of advice (SOA) are numbered. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has published an example SOA in a bid to encourage financial services providers to produce short, sharp and effective documents that still meet the standards set by the Financial Services Reform Act.

The example SOA is one of eight projects ASIC is undertaking as part of the “refinements” program kicked off by Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer Chris Pearce.

ASIC Deputy Chairman Jeremy Cooper says the aim of the exercise is to get providers to produce “clear, concise, and effective” SOAs in 20 pages or less.

“We did better than that,” he said. “Our example SOA is only 12 pages long.”

He says ASIC’s example “shows that you don’t need a great pile of paper to meet the SOA requirements and can provide comprehensive information in a much shorter format”.

“This example reinforces our concerns about 80-page SOAs issued by some advisers.”

The sample SOA is based on a hypothetical financial planning scenario and was developed with the assistance of financial planners – the industry group ASIC has had the most trouble with.

“ASIC’s example SOA has been designed as an illustrative aid,” Mr Cooper said. “We encourage industry to become familiar with [it] and to adapt its style and approach in their SOAs.”

Intermediaries worrying that ASIC might assess their SOAs against its model in any future compliance review can relax. Mr Cooper says the example “is not supposed to reflect a ‘perfect’ SOA either.”