PJC recommendations end FPA enshrinement push
The Financial Planning Association (FPA) will drop its efforts to have the term ‘financial planner’ enshrined under law stating the term would be automatically protected if the Federal Government adopts recommendations made by a Parliamentary Joint Commission (PJC).
FPA chief executive Mark Rantall said recommendations from the PJC Inquiry into professional, ethical and education standards in the financial services industry, if adopted, would enshrine the terms without having to seek legislative approval.
“To be on the Australian Securities and Investment’s Commission (ASIC) register you have to be a member of professional association. To be able to hold yourself out as a financial planner or financial adviser means you have to be on register. This effectively enshrines the term financial planner and adviser in law,” Rantall said.
His comments follow the PJC Inquiry recommendation that financial advice could only be provided by people registered as financial advisers and were members of a professional body operating under an approved professional standards scheme. It also recommended that inclusion on the register would require the completion of a professional year and passing an industry wide registration exam set by the Finance Professionals' Education Council.
FPA General Manager Policy and Conduct Dante De Gori said the Federal Government had already made the commitment to create a register via ASIC but the PJC recommendations enhanced the register and closed off the term ‘financial planner’ and ‘financial adviser’ to anyone who was not on the register.
However Rantall said the FPA was still working on its application to be an approved professional body under the criteria held by the Professional Standards Council.
He said that while the adviser register would become operational in March the requirements to be a member of a professional body and to have gained relevant education standards and passed registration exams would be introduced in stages, allowing the FPA and other professional bodies time to comply with the recommendations if adopted by the Federal Government.
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