FSC benefits from FPA campaign

The Financial Services Council (FSC) is already emerging as a beneficiary of the Financial Planning Association’s (FPA’s) drive to become a professional association, with a number of major financial planning dealer groups having taken up full membership.

FSC chief executive John Brogden (pictured) told Money Management that his organisation had made a decision to accommodate the needs of the dealer groups – some of which had previously only been entitled to ‘contributing’ member status.

“We do believe we have a mandate to represent advice,” he said. “The FPA represents advisers, while the FSC represents advice.”

It is entirely possible a financial advice member could find a place on the FSC board.

A major driver for the decision by dealer groups to either join or upgrade their membership of the FSC has been the move by the FPA to discontinue its principal member category and to restrict voting membership to Certified Financial Planners and Associate Financial Planners.

There has been strong support from some sections of the advice industry to more definitively break the link between product sales and advice, but it is the product manufacturers and the dealer groups that have the greater financial capacity to support organisations such as the FPA and FSC.

One of the most significant groups to take full membership of FSC has been DKN, which is considering its future relationship with the FPA but is giving its planners every encouragement to become FPA members.

DKN Financial Group chief executive Phil Butterworth said that as a corporation, DKN had made the decision that its future would involve FSC membership.

However he said the company supported the direction being taken by the FPA and would be advocating that all its associated advisers support the FPA.

“We absolutely endorse the focus on professionalism being pursued by the FPA, but corporately we see DKN’s interests being served by full membership of the FSC.”

Other dealer groups Brogden said had taken up full membership of the FSC include InFocus and State Super Financial Services, while Professional Investment Services (PIS) and Count Financial had longer-standing relationships.

PIS general manager Grahame Evans said he believed his company got a lot more value out of its membership of the FSC but was considering the opportunity to become a ‘Professional Partner’ of the FPA.

“We are going to ask our planners what they believe we should do, but if we become a ‘Professional Partner’ it will be because we think it is for the good of the industry not because of what it will necessarily deliver to PIS,” he said.

“We will always act to do what is best for the industry,” Evans said.