Tough rules loom for planners
Financial planners are facing the prospect of much tougher and coordinated disciplinary arrangements as a result of the appearances of the Financial Planning Association (FPA), the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) before the Royal Commission.
Senior counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Rowena Orr QC used her summing up of the appearances to point to the significant gaps which exist in the regulatory and disciplinary regime and to suggest scope for significant improvement in the future.
In particular, she suggested that the obligations under the Corporations Act may have been set at too high a level of generality to be capable of actually being enforced.
Orr said this then raised the question of what alternative obligations would be more appropriate and whether the current division of responsibility for professional discipline of financial advisers between employers, ASIC and professional associations was operating effectively to ensure that financial advisers faced appropriate consequences for breaching their statutory and professional obligations.
“Does that division of responsibility create gaps in the disciplinary system?” she asked. “If so, what are they? Is it possible to implement a single system for professional discipline of financial advisers? Would structural changes to the financial advice industry be required to bring that about?”
Orr also quested whether a system of licensing at both an individual and an entity level would be more appropriate than the existing system of licensing only at the entity level.
Recommended for you
Sharing his reasoning in joining the FSC board, WT Financial chief executive, Keith Cullen, believes “product and advice cannot be separated” from each other in the current environment.
The Emerge Foundation, a charity run by financial advisers and fund managers, has announced a scholarship program to help veterans transition into tertiary education.
In an open letter, Sequoia chief executive Garry Crole has hit out against shareholders “with a personal axe to grind” as he fights for his job ahead of an EGM.
The JAWG has announced it is in talks with Treasury around five “core principles” to strengthen the education standards for new entrants to the financial advice space.
