Boutique planner association launched
An association for small dealer groups has been launched to give boutique financial planning groups more clout when it comes to dealing with Government on issues such as compliance and professional indemnity insurance.
The Boutique Financial Planning Principal Group, officially launched at the end of April, stipulates two requirements to join: members must be principal members of theFinancial Planning Associationand they must be principals of a dealer group with 15 or less proper authority licenses.
According to group’s president, Bruce Baker, the main issues it will be concerned with will be compliance, professional indemnity cover and in the short term, transitions to the new Financial Services Reform Act framework.
He says while the group is in no way competing with the FPA and has already met with the FPA to explain its goals, the group will give financial planners from small dealerships strength in numbers.
“The first thing we did when starting up was to write to [FPA chairman] John Godfrey and [FPA chief executive] Ken Breakspear to clarify both our position and the fact that there was no conflict between the two groups,” Baker says.
“But what our group will be doing that is different will be exclusively focusing on the day-to-day issues affecting small dealer groups.”
Baker says the group will be meeting with Government and regulators to voice the concerns of boutique planners about compliance and the new regulatory regime.
“The difficulty that we now face [under FSRA] is that we know we don’t have to go as far as the big dealer groups, such asAMP, in compliance and supplying documentation, but how do we know when we’ve gone far enough?”
Baker says indications from theAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) already acknowledge that compliance for a small dealer will not be required to be as extensive as the monolithic groups, but there are still grey areas about where compliance ends for a boutique group.
The Boutique Financial Planning Principals Group currently has nine principal members and is campaigning to boost numbers.
“To survive and prosper, small dealers will need to work closer together in the future,” Baker says.
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