In October this year, the way financial advisers can offer Managed Discretionary Account (MDA) services to their clients have changed irreversibly. Under the new rules, they can no longer offer MDA arrangements under a 'no action' letter as they have previously done.
This can have serious ramifications on the way a financial planning practice can manage investments on behalf of their clients and the question is, "what happens next for those who missed the October 1 deadline?"
There are several ways to solve this problem including the use of separate managed accounts (SMAs) or varying the adviser's AFSL as the way forward.
To date, only 59 licensees have applied for AFSL variations and 244 licensees are authorised to offer MDAs. If you're a financial adviser and you want to know whether MDAs make sense for your practice, watch our interview or read this explanatory article.