By Craig Phillips
Financial planners are set to face competition from an unlikely source — the medical profession. This follows a Melbourne-based start-up education provider, Feest Financial Training, developing a Diploma of Financial Services course directed at doctors and dentists.
According to Feest managing director Adrian McMaster, graduates in the course, which he says will shortly be listed on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) training register, will be PS 146 compliant and eligible to operate under an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL).
McMaster says the course is intended both for practitioners wanting to manage their own portfolio and for others wanting to operate under an AFSL.
For the latter, McMaster adds the advice they will give is more likely to be to other practitioners rather than patients.
“Whether they choose to offer advice is up to them, but I think there are a few ethical issues of giving advice while a patient is having a filling or undergoing surgery, so it’s more likely they will advise other fellow practitioners on investing,” he says.
McMaster says the reasoning behind the course is that medical practitioners tend to get very involved in their investing, and feedback the group has received through an affiliated company, Medical and Dental Accounting Services, suggests they have not had the best advice to date.
“We’ve received feedback that these individuals are being advised to move into more conservative options in their fifties, however, doctors and dentists are a unique group and have different needs to normal investors as they tend to start their career later in life,” McMaster says.
