Ahead of the release of the long-awaited Retirement Income Review, one advocacy group has called for better access to affordable information, guidance and advice for Australia’s retirees.
The Actuaries Institute has called for the development of a new regulatory regime to govern financial advice in Australia, which would better ensure people can access low-cost guidance to help them make better decisions about money management.
Andrew Boal, convenor of the Actuaries Institute’s retirement strategy group, said better access to advice services would allow Australians to improve their lives in retirement.
“We need a regulatory framework that allows for affordable access to information and guidance for the majority of retirees,” he considered.
“That advice could cost as little as $200 to $300.”
As to the type of advice, Mr Boal said it could be single-issue scaled advice or a modified version of intra-fund advice.
“While the retirement experience is generally quite heterogeneous, there are still a lot of people in quite large cohorts who have very similar circumstances with similar needs in retirement,” he commented.
“We should be able to come up with a system to give people the guidance they need at an affordable price.”
At the moment, more complicated personal advice can cost thousands of dollars, but according to Mr Boal, “only retirees in the top 5 to 10 per cent of savers typically have the level of complexity to justify expensive personal advice”.
This may result in pressure being placed on super funds to spend more money on financial information and guidance that could help members to make better decisions regarding their money, the convenor said.