The FOFA reforms will not prevent bank tellers from providing advice on simple banking products, but they will ensure consumers’ best interests are considered.



Importantly, the FOFA reforms will increase access to advice by making it easier for financial institutions and advisers to provide simpler forms of advice, known as ‘scaled advice’, to say, younger people or people with lower savings. I expect the banks, their employees and customers to be big beneficiaries of these scaled advice reforms.

When he was Minister, Joe Hockey failed to make tough decisions like banning conflicted remuneration and failed to increase access to advice. Mr Hockey is happy to be soft on the financial services industry, yet he wants to be tough on workers in the car industry.

We have undertaken extensive consultation on our FOFA reforms and I don’t intend to change that approach because it has been an effective way of working through issues of detail.

ENDS