AFA/FPA merger unlikely: Fox
Australia's leading representative bodies for financial advisers are playing down calls for the two groups to merge.
Leaders of both the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) rejected calls by financial planning broker, Paul Tynan.
While acknowledging the organisations had been working together well in recent times, Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) chief executive, Brad Fox, said a marriage with the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) was unlikely.
"For anything like that to ever happen — and I'm not sure about the FPA's constitution and by-laws in this regard — buy over 75 per cent of AFA members would have to endorse it, that would seem a pretty unlikely outcome," he said.
"Second of all, the release that was put out [suggesting the merger] completely mischaracterised who the AFA is today.
"It was based on a very old view of who we are and coming from different product backgrounds… that's all gone, it's irrelevant."
Fox told delegates at the Money Management Leaders Series breakfast in Sydney yesterday, that strong relationships between the two organisations were nothing new, adding that competition was healthy.
"This year we worked together very well," he said. "We've worked together well in other years — perhaps not as publicly — and I must also pay tribute to the chairman of the FPA and also the president of the AFA for facilitating working closer on big issues and it has been a more productive year.
"We compete in many ways, and competition's good and healthy. But we work together in many ways and that's good and healthy too."
AUTHOR
Nicholas O'Donoghue
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