The Financial Advice Association of Australia (FAAA) is the professional body for financial planning in Australia, representing accomplished professionals who sign up to high standards and put your interests first.

The FAAA is your trust mark when seeking a financial planner. To be a member of the FAAA, financial planners must have more experience, commit to ongoing education, as well as high professional and ethical obligations.

You can find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Financial Planner AFP® or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

If you could achieve your financial goals by simply putting money away in the bank, you wouldn’t need a financial plan. Unfortunately, life is a little more complex – it’s hard to understand the intricacies of investment, taxation and ever-changing regulations, so you may need professional help.

Yet many of us resist seeking advice, as if our financial future weren’t just as important as our health or our children’s education. We often decide to manage our financial affairs ourselves, or leave it to someone we know, perhaps an accountant or a solicitor, which is a bit like buying vegetables at the butchers. Financial planning is a specialist profession and you should make sure that you’re getting advice from a properly qualified person.

A financial planner will help you reach your goals; even if retirement may seem a lifetime away, the sooner you start planning the more likelihood you’ll have to achieve financial independence and peace of mind.

You can find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Financial Planner AFP® or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

Not all financial planners are the same. By looking for a financial planner that is a member of the FAAA, you can rest assured that they are highly qualified, experienced and will do the right thing by you.

Members of the FAAA can be distinguished from other financial planners because they:

• have a duty to put your interests first
• adhere to the FAAA Professional Code and Best Practice Standards
• are accountable to Australia’s leading professional associates
• complete training every year to keep their knowledge and skills up to date
• are obligated to explain and document their fees and charges to you in a clear and transparent way.

You can find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Financial Planner AFP® or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

The first and most important point for consumers to be aware of whether the planner or adviser they are dealing with is properly registered and licensed. This is easy to check, simply by entering the person’s name into the Financial Adviser Register (“FAR”) run by ASIC. On this register you can see which firm your adviser is licensed by, the products they can give advice on, what training and education they have completed, and whether they have any disqualifications on their record.

ASIC acts as the regulator of the financial planning profession, ensuring that planners meet appropriate standards and ensuring that consumers are protected. Anyone providing advice on ‘financial products’ (for example; shares and bonds, superannuation, life insurance, margin loans etc must be registered with ASIC.

If your financial planner’s name doesn’t appear on the FAR, they might be advising in areas which aren’t treated as ‘financial products’ under the legislation. Many consumers aren’t aware that some products – including investment property, property development or digital assets like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) or cryptocurrency – as well as some financial areas such as aged care and Centrelink, don’t require financial planners to be authorised. Anybody can start up a business advising people in these areas – and many have! It’s important to understand that if you’re taking advice in these areas from an unregistered planner, you will have very little protection under the law if things go wrong. For example you will be unlikely to be able to complain to AFCA if the advice you receive is not suitable.

A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional has achieved the highest financial planning qualification worldwide. There are about 5,000 CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals around Australia. To find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® near you, use our Find a Planner tool.

The introductory meeting is your opportunity to make sure that you feel comfortable with the financial planner’s professional credentials, and that you get on well.

A sure sign of a good financial planner is that they don’t rush you, they carefully listen to you and clearly explain where they can add value and where they can’t – learn more about what to expect in your first meeting here.

You can find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Financial Planner AFP® or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

The advice you seek can be holistic (which takes into account your full financial situation, needs and goals) or scaled (where you only seek advice for particular purposes).

Scaled advice is means that you could see a financial planner for a particular purpose that is most relevant to you at any point in time – without the need to go through a holistic process that takes your full financial situation into account.

While scaled advice can make financial planning more affordable, it’s important to not lose sight of the bigger picture. This is where a professional financial planner can help you to take a step back and review your total financial situation.

You can find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Financial Planner AFP® or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

Most consumers are classed as “retail” under the legislation and are afforded additional protections, for example being able to complain to AFCA if things go wrong. However another area to be cautious around, is being treated as a “wholesale” or “sophisticated” investor. The number of Australians who meet this definition has increased dramatically in recent years. This is partly because the thresholds haven’t been indexed, and also because the value of the family home can be included in the assets threshold (which is $2.5 million) in a period of generally increasing house prices – and a couple’s assets can be combined. Originally only 2% of Australians qualified, whereas now it’s more than 16% that potentially meet the definition. The legal protections available to these types of investors are much lower, and their advisers aren’t required to meet the same standards. Being classed as appropriate might be appropriate for some very high net worth individuals who are also highly knowledgeable and confident in financial matters. However if that’s not the case, you can ask to be treated as a “retail” investor irrespective of your income or assets – remember most Australian consumers should be classed in this way!

Global markets are shifting constantly, and volatility has become the norm. Investors can get understandably nervous and concerned about the fall in the value of their investments. When emotions take charge, it’s important to avoid falling into some of the traps that appear when markets are unpredictable.

Understanding what’s happening and how these events can impact you will help you to make confident decisions about your financial future.

Your financial planner will help you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, and make the best decisions for your financial future.

You can find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Financial Planner AFP® or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

The cost of financial planning will depend on the complexity of your financial situation and plan, as well as the fee method the planner uses.

There are various ways to structure fees, and it typically starts with an initial fee to cover identifying your needs, developing a strategy and implementing the recommendations. There could also be administration and ongoing service fees for regular reviews of your plan to ensure it meets your changing circumstances.

The average initial cost to set up a financial plan is around $3,300 and then about $4,300 annually on average to receive ongoing advice (based on 2020 FPA Member Research by CoreData).

You can find a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Financial Planner AFP® or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

Many financial planners all around Australia give their time, skills and resources to help their local communities. They are passionate about helping people improve their lives and build better futures – not only for their clients, but also for those unable to afford financial advice, through pro bono work and in other ways.

Many FAAA members also support Future2, the charitable foundation of the financial planning profession. Its purpose is to make a positive difference in the lives of those who need it most. Its vision is to be the heart of the financial planning profession – mobilising the energy and resources of financial advice professionals to help disadvantaged youth reach their true potential.

Find out more about Future2

You can search for a financial planner who is an FAAA member in your local area, by using our Find a Planner directory. Once you get your search results, you can filter your search by CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals or by FAAA Professional Practices.

You can find an FAAA member, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional or FAAA Professional Practice by using our Find a Planner tool.

If you are concerned about the advice you have received, there are a number of options open to you depending on what has happened. The FAAA’s consumer factsheet on complaints provides more information.  If your planner is an FAAA member and you believe that their actions are a breach of our Professional Code you can also ask us to look into what has happened. The FAAA takes the conduct of its members very seriously. Poor conduct on the part of its members is rare, but where it does occur the FAAA will act to hold the individual member to account. The FAAA can apply a range of sanctions, including fining an individual, revoking their CFP professional status and expelling them from the organisation. However we are not able to award compensation to consumers. More details can be found on our consumer complaints page.