Regulation to occupy industry minds

Regulationof New Zealand’s financial advisory industry is shaping up to be one of the big issues this year.

Investment and Savings Association chief executive Vance Arkinstall believes that it will also be “one of the most difficult issues for 2002/03”.

His personal view is that the existing regime of self-regulation, coupled with light-handed disclosure regulation, is unsustainable in the future.

He says that the industry has to move quickly towards stronger self-regulation, otherwise it will have a regime forced upon it.

“Either the wider financial services industry moves of its own accord to strengthen the self-regulation environment and closes the gaps between the current position and the requirements of a regulated environment such as exists in Australia, or we will quickly find ourselves defending a weak position against tough regulation.”

The Securities Commission last year released a discussion paper on regulation and is soon expected to make some recommendations for changes to the Minister of Commerce.

Commission chairman Jane Diplock told delegates at the recent annual Money Managers conference that she felt the industry in New Zealand was at a crossroads between self-regulation and government imposed licensing.

She warned that if adviser registration was the end result of the commission’s work, there had to be the capacity to de-register wayward advisers to ensure credibility in the minds of the investing public.

Regulation is being driven in New Zealand by ‘perception issues’, as opposed to shonky work by advisers.