The Financial Planning Association (FPA) chief executive, Dante De Gori has sought to address member confusion and anger around the new Financial Adviser Standard and Ethics Authority (FASEA) guidance by reinforcing that the FPA will be negotiating hard on their behalf.
In doing so, De Gori used a question and answer session on Twitter to also reinforce that the FPA was not FASEA and that the position outlined by FASEA in its December guidance was not that of the FPA.
De Gori sought to reinforce the fact that in circumstances where the FASEA had outlined a position and a consultation process, much would depend on the outcome of the consultations.
“We have a proposal from FASEA and a consultation process,” he told members. “The importance is not so much the '100 points' but the position of recognising existing studies & CPD to count towards degree equivalence. Watch this space.”
“This is about having a degree qualification as the new entry framework for financial planning. The FPA supports this. The question is how do you transition existing planners into this new framework and we support recognition of CPD & all studies completed to help,” the FPA chief executive said.
Reflecting the sort of negative member feedback being received by the FPA, De Gori sought to draw a line under his organisation’s role in the FASEA process, particularly with respect to the status of the Financial Planning Education Council (FPEC) by outlining what he saw as three myths.
Myth buster 1: FPA is NOT FASEA. The proposed standard on education for existing financial planners is not produced by the FPA.
Myth Buster 2: FPEC is owned by the FPA, however it is independently chaired and operates independently of the FPA - that is it has complete autonomy of approving education courses as prescribed by its Charter.
Myth Buster 3: The FPEC list of approved degrees is designed for entry into the CFP program as per its charter. Degrees that are not on the list does not mean they are any less appropriate or qualified - this issue is something we are investigating on how to resolve.
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I trust the FPA will do the right thing by members, just look what a great job they did around the promises they made on opt in.
Resign Dante. Simple. I'll tell you a Myth Buster: The Financial Planning association is working for Australians and Planners. May I remind people that the FPA's submission required CPD and past experience to be 14 points out of 100. Several Pages were devoted to FPEC list. An entity they own (they like setting up separate entities so that they can claim they still represent members) which sets out a very narrow list of Universities offering specialist degrees. They said the same thing about FoFA, the same thing about LIF. We cannot rely on this conflicted group of self interest individuals to do the best thing for Australians. Write to your MP and list your degrees and studies.
Dante or the Board - he's just delivering their strategy.
Twitter: a social media platform limited in the number of characters that people can post. This sums up just how serious the FPA is about this matter. Don't count on them.
Dante, why would anyone believe the FPA acts in the interest of their rank & file members.
You had a pathway to education and regulation with the DFP program via Deakin University.
Was this perfect, "No"! ....... by no means the case,..... because we are dealing with human beings who are far from perfect.
However with the FPA not speaking out and allowing the government and others to approve and promote 4 day courses run by various RTO's to satisfy minimum education requirements for RG146 compliance is a large part of why we now have this parlous state of gaps in adviser education.
This has gone from one absurd extreme to the another.
As others have posted, if past FPA performance is any guide that's resulted in inept capitulation to Opt-in, LIF legislation and other draconian legislation hasn't solved the problem of dealing with a few recalcitrant flawed advisers and the ISN , ...provides no one with confidence anything will change.
It shows that no one in the FPA has the any intestinal fortitude to really stand up for the membership.
I think it was Dean Sanders now running FASEA that first employed Dante at the FPA - the same culprits operate in the vacuum of self interest without having any real industry experience and expect us to pay their salaries and follow them blindly. I thought LIF and the TPB were implemented atrociously but FASEA and the qualifications will tope them as wastes of time effort and money.
Disgraceful process - not even able to discriminate between education and training a fundamental necessity for any skill set. ie the Education process only serves to provide context to financial planning - vis you read a degree.Where as training is targeted to provide specific focused competencies. the current debate shows a parlous lack of understanding of two critical components - what is actually required of a financial adviser in terms of education - and what is required of an adviser in terms of specific training - be that targeted - short course aimed at discreet skill sets or alternatively through demonstrated and properly constructed experience. the very last thing we need is the nanny state of the ideologues ( read liberal science academia) getting involved with real life business competencies. I would draw a parallel to the accounting profession - the undergraduate degrees proving near on nothing for a junior accountants employability in the work force - we spend most of our time retraining them- there is no evidence to say this will improve for the current lot of financial planning competencies - why we haven't even been shown the mapping between what is proposed and why they feel this might make us better - than 20+ years in commercially successful practice serving many families and individuals -
on a personal level I find it offensive that the Ivory tower brigade have even been let near the profession.
Members have every right to be upset over this matter. Why else would you pay membership fees..for the socializing? I don't think so. FOFA & FASEA is/are the most important thing to impact on the advice industry for decades. Whilst the FPA are not FASEA it's been a very weak response from the FPA so far. Contrary to media reports, financial planners are actually highly educated and the requirement to go back and do post graduate studies is mindbogglingly wrong. To not come out and say the contrary is wrong.
Yes Mr Trump we totally believe you and can't for a second see through the BS. We know you have our backs just like you did with the LIF and Opt in.
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