New life designation for financial advisers

The Association of Financial Advisers’(AFA) long quest to establish a designation for the life insurance industry will finally come to a conclusion when advisers officially take on its new Fellow of Chartered Financial Planners (FChFP) mark at the end of March.

The designation replaces the Certified Financial Adviser Australia, which was brought in after the AFA failed to register the Chartered Financial Planner designation in 2002 because the Financial Planning Association claimed it was too similar to its own Certified Financial Planner mark.

The FChFP is a regional mark owned by Singapore’s Asia Pacific Financial Services Association (APFinSA) — formerly the Asia Pacific Life Insurance Council.

“This is a designation that has been sanctioned by APFinSA, and what we are trying to do is give a common standard across the region rather than looking purely and simply at Australia,” AFA president Michael Murphy said.

Meanwhile Murphy, in light of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission signalling a crackdown on the appropriateness of advice in the lead up to choice of fund, has warned the associations’ members to focus on their immediate business.

“The key message to our advisers is not to go outside the square as far as their qualifications or expertise is concerned, and most definitely never go outside the limitations of their licences,” he said.

“We are very concerned about keeping our members focused on the job at hand because we are in a highly regulated industry and we don’t want to be the ones feeling the wrath of the regulator [post choice].”