ING leads market with new concise PDS – 33% size reduction

In a market leading move, ING Australia has today introduced more consise PDSs (product disclosure statements) that utilise incorporation by reference.

The concise, new look PDSs will cover ING’s OneAnswer  and OneCare product range and provide investors with a simpler, easier to read document.

Launching the new PDS, George Lytas, ING Head of Product, Personal Investments, said the concise PDS will benefit investors and financial advisors through an easier understanding of the product attributes, leading to superior outcomes through clearer advice.

“A further benefit is environmental as the new PDSs launched today have an average 33 per cent reduction in size compared to the previous documentation, leading to less dependence on paper for information delivery,” Mr Lytas said.

Federal legislation in August last year now allows for incorporation by reference of certain information, provided there is a reference to the information source.  Previously, such information needed to be reproduced in full each time in each disclosure document.

The key outcome for investors from this legislative change is that Statements of Advice and Product Disclosure Statements can be signficantly reduced in size.

“A large amount of the non-essential information has been removed from our PDSs and now placed on the internet,” said Mr Lytas.

“It is well-known that investors found the larger PDSs a burden to read and understand.  These concise documents will allow for more informed investment decisions.”

The new OneAnswer and OneCare product disclosure documents are available to investors and financial advisers from May 5.