Complaints scheme gets the green light
The Financial Industry Complaints Service (FICS) has become the first off the blocks in the race to sign up responsible entities to its scheme.
The Financial Industry Complaints Service (FICS) has become the first off the blocks in the race to sign up responsible entities to its scheme.
Last week, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) granted FICS (formerly Life Insurance Complaints Service) approval to consider complaints by responsible entities of managed investment schemes and retail investment advisory services.
FICS chief executive officer Paul Bean says the approval is the “culmination of a long, hard year of work”, of which the scheme is now reaping the rewards.
“We are now getting three or four enqiries (for membership) a day,” Bean says, add-ing that many of these are from responsible entities.
Meanwhile, the Financial Services Complaints Resolution Scheme (FSCRS) says it is awaiting a rubber stamp from ASIC to operate as an external complaints scheme. At the moment, the scheme operates as a business registered to the Financial Planning Association (FPA). Although it is structurally separate to the FPA, it says the FPA is still “currently legally responsible for FSCRS financial issues”. It is an ASIC re-quirement that complaints schemes be fully independent from industry groups.
“Much of the groundwork has taken place and discussions with the FPA and ASX have started to establish the basis for that development,” a spokesperson for the FSCRS says.
The FSCRS had 694 members at the end of September, most of which are principal members of the FPA. FICS, which severed its legal ties with the Investment & Finan-cial Services Association several years ago, has almost 200 members made up of life insurance companies, life brokers, securities dealers and responsible entities.
Despite the seeming overlap in the two scheme’s membership bases, Bean says FICS will not launch any full-scale marketing effort. “We figure that people who want to be members will be members. We’re not competing with anyone,” he says.
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