Taking a professional approach

Alongside a ‘shadow shopper’ survey in February, the Financial Planning Association (FPA) will continue to work on lifting the industry profile and working with the regulators.

The organisation will also be appointing a new chief executive officer in 2006, its sixth since the FPA started in 1992.

Chair Corinna Dieters says the move for financial planning to achieve recognition as a profession will continue.

She praises the work the current chief executive Kerrie Kelly and her team have done to achieve this.

“Kerrie has created a solid foundation to work on for achieving professional recognition,” Dieters says.

“But we still need to work with government on FSR [financial services reform], and the recent SOA [statement of advice] change is a useful move. Our concern is to ensure that FSR enables advisers to work in a stable and practical environment.”

Dieters says getting FSR right must also ensure the costs of servicing clients do not increase as changes are introduced.

“Part of our role is to ensure confidence in the financial planning profession remains and that advisers deliver value,” she says.

“We need to ensure that we have high standards. Those challenges will still be there in 2006 as the FPA moves towards a higher level of professionalism in the industry.”

The FPA also aims to strengthen its relationships with the membership at grassroots level through the chapters.

“The FPA wants to listen to what the membership has to say on its industry and the issues,” Dieters says.