It takes nearly four days for planners employed within Westpac’s BT Financial Group (BTFG) to obtain permission to recommend a product not on the firm’s approved product list (APL), a Parliamentary Committee has been told.
Responding to a question on notice from Parliamentary Joint Committee reviewing the life insurance industry, BTFG revealed that, during 2016, the average response time for an adviser to obtain approval to recommend an off‐APL alternative product was 3.8 days from submission of a request for approval.
The company said the approval process was undertaken concurrently with the process of preparing the financial advice document for the customer and therefore typically had no impact on the overall time taken to provide the advice to the customer.
It said the approval process was administered by members of the Advice Research Team and required an adviser to complete the approval request form and submit the form directly to the Advice Research Team for assessment.
“The team assesses whether the request is in the best interests of the customer and the approval is confirmed directly to the adviser,” the answer said.
“In rare cases, the Advice Research Team may consult management on a request. For example, if approval is sought for a product that has not been researched by the research team. In such a case, the matter would be escalated for consideration as to how to proceed.”
“If the product is in the best interests of the customer (as determined by the adviser), management will support the adviser recommending the product.”
