AFA recommends ‘opt-in’ for social media complaints
The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) has directly questioned the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) about whether the personal social media accounts of financial advisers, rather than those of licensees, will be counted when it comes to receiving complaints from clients.
In a submission filed with ASIC as part of the regulator’s review of internal dispute resolution, the AFA has cautioned against formally mandating recognition of social media complaints and has pointed to the limited capability of smaller planning firms to deal with such issues.
It said that while large institutions which employed dedicated complaints teams and people devoted to monitoring social media might manage such a situation, it would be very different for a small business financial advice firm which had social media accounts but did not use them actively.
“We are also very conscious that financial advisers who are employed or authorised by a licensee, may operate their own social media accounts that they interact with clients on,” the AFA submission said.
“Would such social media accounts be covered in this proposal? We expect that it would result in confusion for clients if complaints made on social media platforms for AFSL’s are treated as formal complaints, however complaints made on social media accounts for financial advisers were not.
“We recommend that the formal treatment of complaints on social media platforms be a matter of choice that AFSL’s can elect to opt-in for and detail in their Financial Services Guides. This would mean that entities that are set up to treat social media complaints in this way can and those who are not, can rely on the existing pathways for complaints.”
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