Commission remains evergreen issue

I spent the second half of last week at the recent IFA Conference being held here in Rotorua – The Home of Good Returns.

I have only ever missed one of these conferences since they started in the late 1980s when the association was the IAFP. That leaves me well placed to make some comments. As usual the event was well run, and the new Events Centre is a fantastic venue.

There were a number of good sessions, however I felt some of the key topics like tax (both on investments and insurance) were missing. Also absent was a good update on the association, adviser issues and regulation. The head of the IFA's Australian equivalent, Joanne Bloch, gave delegates some good ideas around the issues advisers will face with regulation.

No doubt some will have a go at me for being critical, but it is useful to comment as it highlights the importance of ASSET and Good Returns as key sources of information for advisers and broader financial services industry.