Following the Financial Planning Association's (FPA's) professional code of conduct as it currently stands would be enough to stop any financial planner from being penalised by the Financial Ombudsman Service, (FOS) according to Alison Maynard, Ombudsman – Investments, Life Insurance & Superannuation at FOS.
Maynard said not only is it not unrealistic to think that financial planners should be able to comply with requirements, but that the requirements are not overly onerous and amount to what any consumer would expect from a financial planner.
However, the fact that a financial adviser was a member of the FPA and signed up to the code would not result in that adviser being considered any differently to one who had no professional membership, she said.
"We're required to take good industry practice into account when we make our decisions and the FPA code of practice clearly sets out what good industry practice is. So we would apply that whether or not someone is signed up to the code," she said.
"We're required by ASIC's regulatory guide 139 to apply those standards. It's not just FOS's decision, it's a requirement of being an [external dispute resolution] scheme that you take into account best industry practice."
FOS also does not take into account whether or not bodies such as the FPA internally police their code, she said.
"The FPA does internally police its code but it makes no difference to us: when someone brings a dispute to us alleging inappropriate advice or poor service we have to look at [whether] it's a breach, if we find inappropriate advice and did that lead to a loss.
"What the FPA does to discipline its members, hopefully that would increase standards, but it's not directly relevant to the FOS process," she said.
