A professional year supervisor has been banned for five years after advice provided by his provisional relevant provider was found to be inappropriate.
Ian Wailes Potter was a financial adviser and supervisor at Superannuation Advice Australia, as well as the responsible manager of its Australian Financial Services licensee AAN Wealth Management.
Having been nominated as a supervisor, ASIC found his supervision was inadequate and that required documents were incomplete or unsigned.
More critically, advice provided by the provisional relevant provider was found to be not in clients’ best interests and inappropriate as:
- Reasonable inquiries were not made into the clients’ relevant circumstances.
- There was no demonstrated need to move to another superannuation product to meet the clients’ superannuation objectives.
- The projection graphs and tables provided a distorted comparison of the existing fund to the recommended fund.
In his role as supervisor, Potter was meant to ensure appropriate supervision was provided to the provisional relevant provider and approve, in writing, any statement of advice provided by the provisional relevant provider to a retail client.
Under the Corporations Act, any advice provided by a provisional relevant provider to a retail client is taken to have been provided by their supervisor.
ASIC also found that the documents on the client files were substantially similar and the advice provided was templated without proper consideration of each client’s unique personal and financial circumstances, needs, and objectives.
The corporate regulator told Money Management it believes this is the first time a banning of this type has occurred.
As a result, he has been banned from providing any financial services, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business, and performing any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business for five years.
The banning order took effect from 25 July 2025 and has been recorded on ASIC’s Banned and Disqualified Register.
He has the right to appeal the decision to the Administrative Review Tribunal.
