An ongoing fee arrangement allows you to arrange the deduction of a fee from a client’s account for the provision of personal advice, where the arrangement is intended to continue for more than 12 months. All ongoing fee arrangements must be supported by a consent from the client to the adviser to allow the adviser to arrange the deduction of the fee.

Where a fee arrangement is not intended to apply for more than 12 months, then the consent requirements differ for superannuation and non-superannuation accounts.

Consent is not required for non super accounts.

For super accounts, a consent is required for non-ongoing fees. The consent is addressed to the trustee of the fund and consents to the trustee arranging the deduction of the fee. The consent must include a statement of the services for which the fee is paid.

If you have existing ongoing fee arrangements in place with Netwealth, your fee will continue to be paid. You will have 12 months from 1 July 2021 (until 1 July 2022) to obtain a fee consent from your client and provide this to Netwealth to ensure that your ongoing fee arrangement will continue.

For ongoing fee agreements entered into before 1 July 2021 and fee deduction has not yet started, we will continue to accept these fee instructions 1 July 2021 to 31 July 2021 For any ongoing fee arrangements that you enter into with your client after 1 July you must provide us with a fee consent. From 1 August 2021 we will require a consent to be provided for all new ongoing fee arrangements.

Information on renewing ongoing fee arrangements and online guides and support will be updated over the coming months. The below information is accurate as at the time it has been provided, but may change closer the date of the first renewal.

Fee renewal is based on the anniversary of the date on which you entered into the fee arrangement with the client. For existing arrangements (before 1 July 2021) this will be the date (in the 2021/22 financial year) that you provide the client with a Fee Disclosure Statement.

When you submit your fee consent via one of the methods mentioned above, you will provide us with the anniversary date (also known as the fee renewal date).

To help you manage the renewal process, Netwealth will:

1. Load this anniversary date against the client account;
2. Let you know 30 days prior to the anniversary (renewal) date (12 months after the initial anniversary date), that your window to provide consent is now open. This notification will be performed via a task on your dashboard.
3. You may renew the fee via the 3 options to provide consent as mentioned above

To continue paying fees under an ongoing fee arrangement we must receive a copy of the correctly completed consent within 150 days from the anniversary date. Ongoing fees will continue to be paid during this 150 day window.

1. If consent is provided to us within the 150 day window, the fee will continue and this process will repeat on the same anniversary date the next year.
2. If the consent is not provided to us before the end of the 150 day window , Netwealth will be required to turn off the fees. Fees will cease to be deducted from the client and cease to be paid to you from the 150th day.

Note that if a client provides you with a notice that they withdraw their consent or they do not provide renewal of their consent, then the fee arrangement is terminated. You must notify us of the termination within 10 business days.

The requirement to provide a fee consent generally does not apply to wholesale clients. Netwealth will not require you to provide a fee consent where you have provided us with the required wholesale/professional investor documentation and that documentation remains current.

Transitional arrangements* applying to existing Wholesale clients until 1 July 2022

If you have not provided us with the required wholesale/professional investor documentation and you wish to charge the client an ongoing advice fee, then your client will be treated as a retail client and we will need to receive a copy of their consent by 1 July 2022.

1. If you provide a valid accountant signed wholesale certificate before 1 July 2022 then a consent will not be required.
2. If you have provided us with the required Wholesale/professional investor documentation, but it expires in the transition period (and you wish to charge an ongoing advice fee from their account) then you will need to provide a new valid accountant signed wholesale certificate before 1 July 2022. If we do not receive an updated certificate then your client will be treated as a retail client and a fee consent will be required before 1 July 2022.

*Example of a transitional arrangement as it applies to existing wholesale clients with an ongoing fee arrangement

On 1 July 2021 your client is an existing wholesale client with a valid accountant’s certificate. The client has a fee arrangement in place on their account. As they are a wholesale client they do not need to sign a consent (either at account opening, fee commencement or renewal).

In Sept 2021 the wholesale certificate lapses (and the client becomes a retail client). Because the client is an existing client with an existing arrangement in place, transitional rules apply therefore we can continue to charge the fee up until 1 July 2022. If the Wholesale certificate is not supplied, and consent is not provided on or before 1 July 2022, the fee arrangement will lapse, and a new fee arrangement would be required to reinstate the fee.

New wholesale clients being set up from 1 July 2021 will be subject to the new rules

When setting up a new wholesale client from 1 July 2021, is important that you provide us with a valid wholesale certificate with the application to avoid the need to provide consent when establishing the ongoing fee arrangement.

If we do not receive the wholesale client documentation, then the client will be treated as retail and a consent will be required before we can start the ongoing fee.

Wholesale clients beyond 1 July 2022

Post 1 July 2022, it is also important to ensure that the wholesale certificate you have provided to Netwealth has not expired. Where a wholesale certificate expires after 1 July 2022, the client will become a retail client from that time and any existing fee arrangement will lapse. Because the client becomes a retail client a new fee arrangement and consent would be required to reinstate the fee.

To help you manage this Netwealth notifies you of an expiring wholesale certificate as a task on the adviser dashboard 30 days prior to expiry. Wholesale certificate expiries can also be tracked using the ‘supplementary account details’ report.

Click here to view/download the forms required to be set up as a wholesale investor on the platform 

For Super Accelerator, consent to deduct the non-ongoing fee is required from the client to Netwealth as trustee, and Netwealth must validate the services being provided are appropriate for super. As such, clients must provide consent or using Netwealth’s electronic consent option or via a netwealth form, as mentioned in the above two options.

To help you track your fee arrangements, we are updating the online fee profile and client fees pages to make it simpler to view current and historic fee arrangements.

The following reports with ongoing fee arrangement details will include fee consent information, and the anniversary date:

1. Adviser/dealer: The 'Client Fees’ bulk report
2. Client: The 'Adviser Fee Statement' and 'Client details' reports

More information coming soon, and this page will be updated when available.