While I do feel for the many advice business owners, particularly those who (rightfully or wrongfully) relied on those IFA payments from product providers such as Colonial First State, it has to be said that the writing was on the wall. Call it what you will 'outsourced IFA' payment arrangements via product providers are still nothing more than commissions packaged up in a more palatable way. Oddly enough amongst his revelations towards retail super funds, Hayne did not probe in its entirety the convoluted Intra-fund advice model that some Corporate Super providers offer. In the instance where a company has 1000 default employees, interstate offices and/or remote workforce (think IT services) how does a small advice practice justify receiving a dollar per member payment when the likeliness of providing any sort of value add service to each and everyone of those members is minuscule? In the case of CFS, advisers had the option to continue to receive payments for retained benefit members (those that have left employment), this has obviously now ceased, but again how on earth can the delivery of any sort of service be justified? Many advice practices chose to cease access to these payments, but many could not overcome the temptation of this money for jam offer.
The super industry is going through a monumental shift in how they engage and deliver services to members. The underlying fact and the fall out from the RC is that super trustees ultimately need to make decisions that are in the best interest of members...not financial advisers. Expect to see other soon to be non-bank owned funds follow suit...