In his address to members at the Sydney leg of the Genxt Conference yesterday, AFA chief executive Brad Fox noted that the association already reports all of the complaints received and its findings as a group under the Tax Practitioners Board regime.
However, he polled members about whether the AFA should start individually naming advisers and adopt a stance of publicly naming and shaming those who breach its revised code of conduct.
“Another choice that we’re going to have to make as an association is how we produce our results under this code,” Mr Fox said.
“This is really vital information for our code working group. These are things that are going to shape us.”
The poll results revealed that around 62 per cent of respondents said the AFA should name and shame for only major breaches of the code, 4 per cent said name and shame for every breach, 20 per cent said never name and shame, while 12 per cent said they were unsure.
Under the Corporations Amendment (Professional Standards of Financial Advisers) Bill 2016, a new code of ethics will be established by a newly formed standards-setting body, which is slated to begin operating by 1 July 2017.
Mr Fox said the new code of ethics must be inserted verbatim into the AFA’s revised code of conduct following the passing of professional standards legislation through Parliament.
The move comes as the FPA has handed a $16,000 fine and expelled a member from its ranks, a move which has sparked considerable debate from ifa readers.
In January, ifa asked FPA chief executive Dante De Gori whether its decision to announce via press release misconduct by two of its former members was a change in strategy by the association.
“No,” Mr De Gori replied by email, without any further elaboration.
Have you ever heard of the saying, ” Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones? I would should suggest that such a voyeuristic approach is out of order. There is always going to be a percentage of individuals in any industry that fail moral and honesty principals. By all means punish them but these people may also have families. Why humiliate them as well? I am a CFP an I have level education 9 status and I have seen rogues at play in my 36 years practising in this industry but I do not agree with the chest thumping of our alleged industry representatives constantly calling for metaphorical executions. Frankly I am disgusted.
WOW I actually agree the you Anonymous, lets have an association of all level 9 status (Masters) and we will go against the FPA and AFA lol
it really is incredulous how the AFA can suggest this.
As far as I was aware the regulator is the only one who can name and shame, anyone else opens themselves up to litigation,
We have all seen recently the actions of CBA playing the blame game and blaming individual financial planners. yet we all know that the people behind this are the middle management forcing staff to meet a sales/revenue target. In doing so CBA damaged the reputation of all financial planners, not only CBA. Naming and shaming goes towards perpetuating this myth and avoids the real problem. The real problems in the advice industry lay with the big end of town and product manufacturers, dealer groups and not the planner in the coal face trying to run a business.
No one is interested in solving the real problem. Because the perpetrators of the real problems mask the real problems and they use their lobby group and their pots of money and use regulation to kill off the competition by blaming the individual financial planner. who in the scheme of things is just a pawn. when you don’t have a voice at the table no one hears you. that’s all folks.
Is this what the FSC has told the AFA to do to get rid of some more competition. Would the AFA have to have agreement from the FSC on who they named and shamed? For example CBA or Macquarie have not been named or shamed by the AFA. But then again they are a sponsoring “partner”
How can the AFA as an association or the AFA leadership even think they can be taken seriously after the LIF is amazing. I can’t even comment on this as I can’t take them seriously. Name and shame corruption by all means but start with the AFA, FPA and FSC.
Woop Doop, how about concentrating your efforts into doing more to ensure our day to day role as ETHICAL Advisers is a little easier instead of bowing down like your mates at the FPA to ALL legislative changes put in place.
Dont really care about Grub advisers but do care about the poor clients exposed to them and the service I am able to give my clients going forward.
Does this same principle apply to in competent staff and executives of our various associations ? If a member asks for clarification on such things as MDA s from the association and don’t get a response DO we shame them or does this come down to an honest oversight ?
I think deliberate and willful unethical behavior should be named and shamed, but issues such as administration oversight and the like should be left behind closed doors with training being given. You can help people who learn from their mistakes, but you can’t help those who intentionally and knowingly do the wrong thing.
correct, a distinction needs to be made for administrative oversight vs willful misconduct. what profession or society are a perfect people who make no mistakes. please name one. you can’t and that is because there are none. this zealotry has got to stop.
Agreed John, what profession indeed, lets see this applied equally to the legal and accounting profession, the lines would be running red hot.
I agree that naming and shaming of people who brazenly commit fraud or other misconduct involving greed and so on but not against advisers who make an honest mistake then get hung out to dry by the regulator and AFA/FPA. People make mistakes, no matter whether you’re a surgeon, lawyer, judge or other, we are all imperfect and make honest mistakes and these types of errors are not deserving of bearing a cross for a lifetime and never being able to earn a living again, come on people wake up and use common sense not everything is black and white there are principles involved too!
If we wanted to be treated like professionals and want to become a profession that is held in high regard, we need to emulate other professions, perhaps some that have been around for a lot longer. How do they treat their members? how do they position their members? how do they treat incidence of misconduct (both minor and serious ones). this naming and shaming is infantile
Be careful what you wish for………