Bad planner publicity takes it toll
The adverse publicity surrounding financial planners appears to have had a commensurate negative impact, according to the latest data released by Roy Morgan Research.
The financial planning profession has never rated particularly highly since it was included in the Roy Morgan research dealing with the image of the professions, but over the past 12 months planners have fallen four per centage points to 24 per cent in terms of overall perception of their ethics and honesty.
The good news for planners, though, is that their fall was not as significant as those of bank managers (down nine per cent), accountants (seven per cent) and lawyers (down seven per cent).
However the reality for planners was that they were coming off a lower base than either bank managers or accountants.
The most respect professionals turned out to be nurses, with 92 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over rating nurses as the most ethical and honest profession — the 21st year in a row since nurses were first included on the survey in 1994.
The lowest ranked profession was once again car salesmen four per cent (up one per cent) — a position they have held for over 30 years with the next lowest being advertising people five per cent (down three per cent) and real estate agents nine per cent (unchanged).
Commenting on the results, Roy Morgan principal, Gary Morgan noted that a majority of professions (17) recorded falls in their ratings for ‘ethics and honesty' over the past year.
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