Adelaide planner permanently banned

An Adelaide-based financial adviser has been permanently banned following an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigation.

The regulator announced today that the adviser, Tai Thanh Nguyen had been banned for dishonestly back-dating advice documents to clients, incorrectly witnessing binding nomination of beneficiary forms and creating or modifying documents on client files produced to ASIC.

Nguyen was an authorised representative of Charter Financial Planning, GWM Adviser Services and Interprac Financial Planning.

It said Nguyen had also attempted to induce a client to mislead ASIC.

ASIC also found that Mr Nguyen had further engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by allowing the incorrectly witnessed binding nomination forms to be submitted to insurers on behalf of two of his clients. He had also failed to comply with a financial services law by implementing financial advice to four clients before they were provided with a statement of advice.

Commenting on the banning, ASIC Commissioner Danielle Press said financial advisers had a critical role to play in helping consumers make confident and informed decisions about financial products.

“They have an obligation to act in the best interests of their clients when providing advice and must adhere to ethical standards and conduct themselves with honesty and professionalism,” she said. “ASIC will continue to take action where the conduct of financial advisers is inadequate”.

ASIC found that Nguyen was likely to contravene a financial services law for reasons including that he had engaged in dishonest conduct while he was an authorised representative of GWM Adviser Services Limited, and continued to do so while he was an authorised representative of InterPrac Financial Planning.

“Moreover, he acted dishonestly in the course of responding to an ASIC statutory notice,” the regulator said.

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