The National Australia Bank (NAB) must ensure the integrity of its Financial Advice Remediation (FAR) program, if it is to restore confidence in the advice profession, Slater and Gordon believes.
Prior to the announcement of the FAR program yesterday, the compensation lawyers had been investigating claims on behalf of NAB and NAB Wealth clients who reported suffering losses as a result of advice provided by the bank.
Welcoming the program, Slater and Gordon senior litigation lawyer, Mark Walter, said the bank needed to ensure the scheme was fair and equitable, to restore customers’ trust.
“It’s important for the integrity of the scheme — and for those like it — that NAB customers are entitled to seek independent advice,” he said.
“Customers have the right to be confident that the review process, and any redress, is fair and equitable.”
Walter backed the Government’s moves to strengthen standards within the advice sector, in its response to the Financial System Inquiry, saying that Australians had been continually let down by the banks and financial advisers.
“That’s why tighter regulation, such as those proposed by the Government in response to the Murray Report, are equally important,” he said.
As previously reported, NAB Wealth has made $1.7 million in payments to 87 customers since February, while NAB Wealth Group Executive, Andrew Hagger, said the business was writing to customers where it believed there might be financial loss caused by inappropriate advice.
“We’re committed to helping restore customer trust and confidence in the financial planning industry. As part of this, we’re taking a detailed look at our advice business, acknowledging that we may have made mistakes. Where we identify these, we’ll try to make things right,” he said.
