ART introduces financial advice fee caps

Australian Retirement Trust (ART) has introduced new financial advice fee caps, coming into effect for Australian Retirement Trust Super Savings and QSuper accounts from 15 August.

ART’s head of advice, Anne Fuchs, said the changes were part of the additional benefits to members following the recent merger between QSuper and Sunsuper.

“No matter whether you’re a young barista or university student starting out on your superannuation journey, a blue-collar worker, a nurse, or a public servant, we are providing greater flexibility to make financial advice more accessible,” she said.

“The inclusion of a minimum balance requirement also ensures that member’s balances won’t be eroded by financial adviser advice fees, which we believe is in their best interest.”

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From 15 August, 2022, Australian Retirement Trust advice fee caps (for Super Savings and QSuper accounts) would be:

• Maximum fee of:
  
  • When a member commenced a new advice relationship with a financial adviser, the financial adviser would be able to deduct an initial advice fee, up to, $1,500 (including GST) if the advice related to super. This initial fee would contribute to the costs associated with the preparation of an initial Statement of Advice upon entering a new advice relationship with a financial adviser.
  • Members could authorise their financial adviser to deduct an advice fee up to a maximum of 2.5% p.a. of their account balance, capped at $8,800 p.a. (including GST), to cover the associated costs of advice such as advice implementation, ongoing assistance with managing their account, ad-hoc advice, and annual reviews. The cap would be applied for a rolling 12-month period and applied to the sum of all advice fees paid.
• Minimum balance of:
  
  • A member must hold a balance of $25,000 across all accounts and no individual account can drop below $6,000 (after any advice fee payment).
• Caps were applied across the total of all advice fees paid from a members account; there were not separate caps for different advice fees.

Fuchs said: “This is a great opportunity for ART members to pay for financial advice they need to make sure they get the most out of their super, without having to worry about funding it from their household budget, because we know the cost of living is challenging for many of our members.

“Likewise, financial advisers trust us to service them and their clients in an easy and timely way, with dedicated adviser servicing teams specifically trained to support advisers,” she said.

More than 4,000 financial advisers had chosen to register with ART for their Super Savings account clients, and nearly 1,000 financial advisers were able to charge advice fees to their clients with QSuper accounts.

“Importantly, this benefit is for all ART members. If financial advisers have clients who have a Super Savings account, we encourage them to contact us and register for this consistent advice fee cap service as well. For financial advisers who have clients with a QSuper account, please talk to their licensee to register their interest,” Fuchs said.