Retirement Income Simulator

Today’s release includes:

  • Updating the maximum age pension rate increase effective 20 March
  • Updating the ASFA comfortable amounts reflecting the December quarter 2015

With January’s release we mentioned that the regulation applying to online calculators was being replaced. Instead of Class Order 05/1122, which expired 1 April 2016, ASIC has released Corporations (Generic Calculators) Instrument 2016/207, which we nickname CI207. What has changed? Not much.

  • The disclosure justifying the default assumptions as reasonable no longer has to be clear and prominent
  • Any amounts projected more than two years into the future must be shown as present values

We’re also working on an application to give users advice on their retirement (robo-adviser). Here’s a sneak peek. If you’re wondering where robo-advice fits in with calculators and advisers, try this automotive analogy.

Older cars don’t do much for you, you have to change gear, wind the windows and remember to turn the lights off. Newer cars have auto-transmission/lights/wipers, lots of safety features and even navigation screens. These cars represent different online calculators on the web, which will help you get to your destination, a retirement plan. But with all of them, you’re still the driver, you decide where you want to go and how you get there.

Now if you can’t drive or don’t know the roads, you need advice on where to go and how to get there; you need a driver. If you call an advice helpline, you’re catching a taxi. If you hire a financial adviser, you’re employing a chauffeur.

Think of robo-advice as the driverless car option. You say where you want to go, and the car gets you there. If you have lots of luggage, are starting in the bush or need to go via multiple waypoints, the car might decline. If you’re on a well-travelled road, the driverless car will give you the best ride every time.

ASIC is now consulting the public on digital financial advice, and looking for comments on proposals to require minimum competence standards for licensees, and guidance for monitoring and testing of algorithms.


Tags: retirement-planning age-pension asfa-comfortable-standard robo-advice