Financial Services Guide (FSG)

This Financial Services Guide (FSG) is an important document providing information on:

  • The services we are able to offer;
  • How we and our associates are remunerated for our services;
  • Our internal and external complaint resolution processes;
  • The FASEA Code of Ethics, and;
  • Our privacy policy.

When we provide you with a financial advice it will be in writing in the form of a Statement of Advice (SoA) or Record of Advice (RoA). These documents include details of our fees and commissions and any associations we have with financial product issuers or other parties which may have influenced the advice we give you. We will initially provide you with an SoA, with any subsequent advice provided in the RoA, if there have been no material changes in your circumstances or strategy since your previous SoA. Copies of these documents will be retained on your client file, and you may request a copy by contacting your financial planner.

Legislative notice – why we cannot call ourselves independent.

The law makes it very difficult for most advisers to say they are independent, unbiased, or impartial, even if they are not in any way linked to a financial product provider (like a bank).

If, for example, an adviser gets paid a commission to help a client arrange some insurance they are automatically prohibited from calling themselves independent. Most advisers who receive those
commissions charge their clients very little (if anything) for the advice or the help they provide putting a policy into place. From time to time, we receive these commissions.

Although we always put your interests before ours when giving advice, we cannot, (by law) call ourselves independent, unbiased, or impartial.

Our authorised services and the kinds of financial products they relate to:

Accru Felsers Financial Planning Pty Ltd (Accru Felsers Financial Planning) holds an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL). Under this licence, Accru Felsers Financial Planning deals in relation to the
following products:

  • Managed Investments
  • Superannuation
  • Securities
  • Deposit Products
  • Life insurances
  • Portfolio/Investment Review
  • Wrap & platform services

What information should I provide to receive personalised advice?

To ensure that the advice we provide you is tailored to your specific circumstance, you need to provide us with a list of your personal objectives, details of your current financial situation and any other relevant information, so that we can offer you the most appropriate advice possible. You may tell us how you would like to give us instructions to buy and sell financial products, for example by telephone or email. If we provide you with execution related telephone advice, you may request a record of execution related telephone advice at that time of up to 90 days after providing the advice. If you do not provide us with all the relevant information, the advice you receive may not be appropriate to your needs and objectives.

Product Disclosure Statement

We will provide you with a Product Disclosure statement (PDS) or offer document if we recommend that you buy a particular financial product. The PDS will contain information about the features, costs, risks, benefits and considerations of the financial product. We act for you as our client and not for any product issuer or financial institution.

Associations with issuers of financial products:

Accru Felsers Financial Planning Pty Ltd may receive other forms of remuneration from fund managers or wrap service providers. Accru Felsers Financial Planning Pty Ltd keeps publicly available registers of these alternative forms of remuneration. These are available for inspection, or a copy can be provided to you on request.

Financial Advising and Portfolio Management:

We may charge a monthly management fee of up to 2.0% pa (excluding GST) of your total funds invested or a fixed dollar fee as agreed by you. Where the fee is debited from your investments, the fee will be automatically deducted from your working cash account on a monthly basis.

For example: an investment of $100,000 would equate to a $2,200 fee inclusive of GST, paid monthly.

If you require services which differ from those mentioned above, we are willing to discuss and give you an estimated cost based on an hourly rate and will invoiced accordingly or charge you an ongoing service fee through the fund manager or product provider.

Insurance

We may receive payment from insurance companies as follows:

  • Upfront commission of up to 60%
  • Trail Commission of up to 20% per annum

For example: a policy with $1,000 annual premium result in Accru Felsers Financial Planning Pty Ltd receiving and initial commission of up to $600 and an ongoing commission of up to $200 per annum. These amounts are payable by the insurance company and is not a separate charge to you.

Fee Disclosure Statement

We will provide you with an Annual Fee Disclosure Statement from commencement of your relationship with Accru Felsers Financial Planning. This document provides with details of the fees that
you pay and services you will receive from Accru Felsers Financial Planning.

Complaint resolution procedures:

If you have a complaint about the service provided to you, you should take the following steps:

(1) Contact us and register your complaint as soon as possible. We will try to contact you as quickly and as reasonably possible.

(2) If your complaint is not satisfactory resolved within 45 days, you have the right to refer the matter to the Australian Financial Complaints Council (AFCA) with Accru Felsers Financial Planning Pty Ltd as a financial member. AFCA is an ASIC approved External Disputes resolution scheme. They can be contacted on 1800 931 678, or on email at info@afca.org.au. Alternatively, please refer to the AFCA website at www.afca.org.au.

Referral arrangements

Where you have been referred to us by someone else, if we pay a fee or commission in relation to that referral, this amount will be fully disclosed to you in your Statement of Advice.

Compensation arrangements

We have put in place compensation arrangements (via maintenance of professional indemnity insurance and adequate financial provision for any policy excess) for the purpose of meeting our compliance obligations under section 912B of the Corporations Act.

The FASEA Code of ethics

From the 1st of January 2021, all authorised financial advisers must comply with following values and standards set by the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority.

Values

  • Trustworthiness
  • Competence
  • Honesty
  • Fairness
  • Diligence

Standards

1. You must act in accordance with all applicable laws, including this code, and not try to avoid or circumvent their intent.

2. You must act with integrity and in the best interests of each of your clients.

3. You must not advise, refer, or act in any other manner where you have a conflict of interest or duty.

4. You may act for a client only with the client’s free, prior, and informed consent. If required in the case of an existing client, the consent should be obtained as soon as practicable after this code commences.

5. All advice and financial product recommendations that you give to a client must be in the best interests of the client and appropriate to the client’s individual circumstances. You must be satisfied that the client understands your advice, and the benefits, costs, and risks of the financial products that you recommend, and you must have reasonable grounds to be satisfied.

6. You must consider the broad effects arising from the client acting on your advice and actively consider the client’s broader, long-term interests and likely circumstances.

7. The client must give free, prior, and informed consent to all benefits you and your principal will receive in connection with acting for the client, including any fees for services that may be charged. If required in the case of an existing client, the consent should be obtained as soon as practicable after this code commences. Except where expressly permitted by the Corporations Act 2001, you may not receive any benefits, in connection with acting for a client, that derive from a third party other than your principal. You must satisfy yourself that any fees and charges that the client must pay to you or your principal, and any benefits that you or your principal receive, in connection with acting for the client are fair and reasonable and represent value for money for the client.

8. You must ensure that your records of clients, including former clients, are kept in a form that is complete and accurate.

9. All advice you give, and all products you recommend, to a client must be offered in good faith and with competence and be neither misleading nor deceptive.

10. You must develop, maintain, and apply a high level of relevant knowledge and skills.

11. You must cooperate with ASIC and monitoring bodies in any investigation of a breach or potential breach of this code. Individually and in cooperation with peers, you must uphold and promote the ethical standards of the profession and hold each other accountable for the protection of the public interest.

12. Individually and in cooperation with peers, you must uphold and promote the ethical standards of the profession and hold each other accountable for the protection of the public interest.

Privacy Disclosure Statement

In order to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act, we are required to advise you that Accru Felsers Financial Planning holds personal information about you. The information has been and will continue to be collected by us for the purpose of providing you with the financial planning and accountancy services we have agreed upon. These services may include the provision of financial planning advice, the preparation, review and/or implementation of your financial plan, the making, reviewing and/or implementation of securities and investment recommendations.

They may also include any other accountancy-based services, such as (but not limited to) lodgement of tax returns (personal, company, partnerships, trusts, superannuation, and BAS/IAS) and company secretarial work (directors’ report, minutes of meeting and financial reports). We may share your financial information with the relevant accounting personnel engaged in these services. From time to time, we may also provide you with marketing material which may be of interest to you. Under legislation and the rules of conduct of the relevant industry bodies, we are required to collect information about you for the purpose of providing you with the services referred to above. If you do not provide us with the information requested by us, we may not be able to provide you with the services you require of us.

We will, from time to time, disclose information about you to other professionals, legal advisers, superannuation fund trustees, insurance providers, product issuers and administration and/or other service providers in connection with providing you with the agreed services. In the event we consider it necessary to use or disclose information about you for purposes other than those services, or related purposes, we will seek your consent. We will always seek to ensure that the personal information collected and held by us is protected from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure.

Contact Details

AFSL No 341 864
FSG Version No: 8
Contact details
AFSL No 341 864
AFSL No 341 864
Accru Felsers Financial Planning Pty Ltd
Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) No 341 864
Director: Greg Newbury
Address: Level 6, 1 Chifley Square,
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone: (02) 8226 1655
Email: gnewbury@Accru Felserssyd.com.au

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