Some Background regarding SimplyRetirement
For more than a decade the principals of SimplyRetirement have operated a professional services portal focused on providing financial advice and services to Australian expatriates and migrants to Australia. This experience has reinforced our view that Australia has an exceptionally complicated retirement and taxation system and there is a place for a website and company that tries, as much as possible, to address retirement issues in a simple, straightforward and independent fashion.
We also take the view that the Australian Government's focus is too much on compliance when it comes to financial planning, investment advice and retirement planning - in contrast to promoting broader community financial education. The simple fact is that increasing complexity and compliance costs continue to make professional advice less and less affordable for most Australians. While the objective of ensuring objective, competent advice is entirely understandable, the greatest source of compliance issues have actually arisen within the banking sector. Further increasing compliance costs was ever only likely to benefit the banks and large investment firms, driving yet more concentration and increasing the cost and reducing access to independent financial advice.
It is only slightly of benefit that the LNP, now in opposition, belatedly accepts that the approach was a failure - the fact remains that nearly 10,000 financial planners/advisors left the sector, pushing up the cost of advice - and this loss cannot be replaced in the short to medium term. More emphasis needs to be on "self help" and education to fill the widening gap in advice, particularly for middle Australia, combined with a determined effort to simplify the tax, superannuation, retirement and age care provisions - in isolation and in concert - which drive the inordinate amount of complexity.
The objective of this site is to provide a platform which enables individuals, who intend to be predominantly self funded in their retirement, to easily access information about most issues associated with planning for their retirement. It is virtually impossible to provide a resource which addresses all circumstances, but the objective is that individuals should be sufficiently informed to constructively discuss, and challenge where appropriate, any professional advice they might receive - and to participate in the planning and management of their own retirement.
In terms of this website, it is a commercial venture with revenue generated from a variety of sources, including marketing and operational support from service providers, referral payments or commissions where appropriate, as well as advertising. With respect to the latter, we manage all our advertising directly and do not allow "network advertising" on SimplyRetirement (SR) so that advertisers are both reliable and ethical in terms of their operations.
If you hold a similarly ethical perspective and would like to discuss advertising or participation on SR we would invite you to complete the Contact Form and we will be in touch promptly.
Complete Retirement Group Pty Ltd.
ABN: 46614551843