Onerous, overly prescriptive financial advice laws have pushed median fees up 16 per cent in a year to $3256 and must be wound back to stop the vast majority of the population being priced out of the market, the peak body for Australia’s $3 trillion financial services sector says.

Almost a decade after Labor’s landmark Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) laws came into force, the Financial Services Council will release a plan on Monday to water down the consumer protection regime, which it argues is tripping up advisers in red tape. This has forced a quarter of advisers to exit the industry in two years and pushed up barriers to entry.