The Financial Planning Association (FPA) is poring over the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) consultation paper on financial planner code monitoring bodies to determine whether it has both the financial and physical capacity to become one.
FPA chief executive, Dante De Gori confirmed to Money Management that his organisation was going through the ASIC consultation paper with a fine-tooth comb and said it was already evident that organisations would need substantial financial and physical capability to undertake such a role.
The ASIC consultation period is open for six weeks and the FPA board is expected to determine its position at its meeting next month.
Financial and administrative capacity were always regarded as the most substantial hurdles for organisations looking to obtain code-monitoring status with ASIC stating it will be seeking to ensure that monitoring bodies have “sufficient resources and expertise to appropriately monitor and enforce compliance with the code under the scheme”.
The regulator also made clear that it will be looking at the financial, technological and human resources of the monitoring body and where those resources are situated, together with the number of advisers that the scheme is designed to cover.
The major accounting bodies, the FPA and some professional services firms are regarded as being best financially equipped and resourced to take on code-monitoring status but no one has ruled out a joint approach.
De Gori said that given the resources which would be required to become a code-monitoring body it was not something the FPA would be taking on lightly, given its other obligations in terms of representing and servicing its members.
He said that there were still a number of issues which needed greater clarity and that the FPA would be seeking further information from ASIC.
