Despite stinging references by members of a Senate Committee, Macquarie Private Wealth has declared it is well on track to fulfilling the enforceable undertaking it entered into with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in January, last year.
In an investor briefing released during its annual general meeting, the big financial services group pointed to the fact that a new management team had taken control of Macquarie Private Wealth and that implementation of its obligations within the enforceable undertaking were on track with three of the four phases were now complete.
"Together with implementation of Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) regulatory changes, significant investment [is] being made in new processes, practices and systems," the briefing said, suggesting that around $49 million was being spent over two years.
The investor briefing also revealed there had been a review of all advisers and around 11,500 hours of face-to-face adviser training so far.
It noted that reviews of client files had occurred where concerns had been identified either by Macquarie Private Wealth or clients and that the company was also contacting all clients ensuring they had the opportunity to raise concerns.
Macquarie Private Wealth came in for critical reference from members of the Senate Committee reviewing the performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and in the context of failings identified within Commonwealth Financial Planning.
ASIC announced in January, last year, that it had accepted an enforceable undertaking (EU) from Macquarie following a surveillance that found "some recurring compliance deficiencies by and in the supervision of [the company's] advisers".
The regulator said it had found Macquarie had failed to address recurring compliance deficiencies that involved a significant number of its advisers, noting that the deficiencies were initially identified by the company's own client file reviews dating back to 2008.
