The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s stakeholder survey for 2013 was released today off the back of a survey of more than 1468 industry and non-industry stakeholders, conducted by Susan Bell Research on ASIC’s behalf between February and June 2013.
Asked to what extent various “gatekeepers in the system have integrity”, less than one quarter (23 per cent) responded in the affirmative for “financial advisers”, while “fund managers” also fared badly with 26 per cent responding positively.
An even lower proportion (20 per cent) of respondents indicated they believe the broader financial services industry manages conflicts of interest effectively, the report states.
Integrity was defined as a mixture of “having high standards, managing vested interests, not hiding anything and being honest”.
More to come.
Another report full of useless garbage.
Statistics can be murdered for any cause. Sample size and where??? If we had no integrity- we would not have clients-simple as that. We would not have internal referrals- present clients referring if we had no integrity. Get real and assign these reports to the round file where they belong. I bet the same sample for other professions would give the same response-
useless waste of statistical mongering.
Well said “Laurie”
NO Surprise obviously also has No Idea. Since when does any industry impose additional red tape on itself. This has all been applied by an incompetent labour government to support it’s back room boys in the ISN but is of very little value to the consumer.
You are obviously not even in this industry so don’t comment on matters in which you appear to have no knowledge or understanding.
[quote name=”No surprise”]I rest my case.
The blind leading the blind.
Your industry is a shambles and you cling to your old ways. Get with it FP people! You are all standing by watching your industry implode with high cost of compliance yet stand by it like a badge of honour. Who can be the biggest martyr. Rebel someone for god sake!! Make a stand and get rid of your red tape. It doesn’t work so change it for christ sake.[/quote]
No Surpirise has a point…..remove all conflicts, separate product from advice…..next stage…remove SOAs because they won’t be required anymore as they’re wont be any conflicts to disclose. Remove dealer groups as they won’t be required anymore.
Advisers will be free to provide advice and charge an affordable fee via the eftpos machine. Next please….
If a product is involved, charge an implementation fee. If it needs reviewing fine, charge an ongoing fee,
It’s the way it should be. Doesn’t stop product manufacturers doing their thing or upset shareholders. Just means advice is advice…
I rest my case.
The blind leading the blind.
Your industry is a shambles and you cling to your old ways. Get with it FP people! You are all standing by watching your industry implode with high cost of compliance yet stand by it like a badge of honour. Who can be the biggest martyr. Rebel someone for god sake!! Make a stand and get rid of your red tape. It doesn’t work so change it for christ sake.
I think “No Surprise” is too gutless to come back to this thread. I do believe he has long gone. That’s what these guys do. they throw in their ignorant self opinionated view and run for cover. They don’t have to face any sort of justice – but manage to to fling a bit of excrement at us that they hope sticks. Anyway, I will look out for his ‘log on’ name from now on. If he comes back I’ll help him understand how the regulators have forced their (and Bill Shorten’s) agenda on us all! I’m sure “No Surprise” and Bill Shorten have Sunday BBQs together. Don’t vote Labor my dear colleagues. If you do, you’ll be regulated out of business. Then “No Surprise” can manage his financial affairs all by himself.
I think “No Surprise” doesn’t want to pay for anything. If he has the ‘smarts’ to look after his own money, good on him. But those that need help have to pay for advice service. This is an expensive business to maintain. Compliance costs are real and I have to pay them. It is not a secret commission. Kerry Packer sought advice and paid for it. “No Surprise” wouldn’t pass my new client suitability test. “No Surprise” can do anything he likes with his money. No imposed professional hours of training, no travel and accommodation costs for training, no professional indemnity insurance, no file audits, no software costs and dealer costs, no support staff to manage all this, no threat of litigation,and he doesn’t even need a degree. “No Surprise” can sit in his little fibro house and manage his affairs all by him self without any professional worries. He’s a very lucky man.
@ No Surprise – The joke is on you buddy. What you simply don’t get (and only you would know why) is that the truly nousy individuals are those individuals who KNOW they will be better off using the services of a FP and do so. Tragedy is that there are not enough people like this.
It’s Okay…..ASICs report card wasn’t great either. Tends to happen when we’re still suffering from volatile markets and corporate collapses years after the main event. Australia got hit pretty badly. Thang god Kevin saved us…could have been worse:-)
In a couple of years time it will all be fine again…..meanwhile the geared up SMSF property bubble continues to simmer away. Funny how gearing up property is acceptable but gearing into shares is almost criminal activity.
Whilst ASIC is in survey mode, how about a survey of every trustee who established a SMSF with a ‘non-licensed’ adviser ie: Accountants and Tax Agents. A few questions along the lines of:
– What it suggested/recommended that you move your super into an SMSF?
– Were you suggested/recommended to invest these funds into a specific product or asset?
– Did you think you were getting licensed advice?
– Did you think you were protected with this advice given?
– Did you know that if you were advised from a licensed adviser that you would have been protected?
– Were you advised that you are better qualified and given better protection from dealing with this person as opposed to a licensed financial planner?
The results would horrify.
To No Surprise,
I guess you are someone that has never spoken to a professional planner ? We have recently written to all of our clients asking do they wish to retain us as their Adviser , we got 100% positive response , this tells us we must be doing things correctly , Not Over priced Nor overcharging sad you paint everyone with the same brush , all occupations in the world have a majority of excellent people involved in them , sadly all industries have a few bad apples in the barrell, would be interested to know your occupation ?
With the public being charged thousands of dollars for basic templated advice by so called professionals its no wonder an FP is held in such low regard. Despite fofa, the industry is still overcharging, believes clients deserve to pay huge fees & full of self praise. People don’t want to hand over a 60inch Smart LED TV to receive compliant 50 page soa’s they will never read or want to read. YOUR compliance cost is YOUR industries problem and clients are not here to be tricked into huge upfront & ongoing fees. Its just commission in disguise. Nothing has changed in the FP industry NOTHING!
You all need to press the reset button on your industry. In the meantime i Pray none of my family gets hoodwinked by an FP and its substandard morals.
Yep, there are a few left in the industry. But 95% of us are reduced to 20 reliable honest professionals. Thanks ASIC for rubbing the minorities crap into our face. How about some balance? Say 95% good and 5% bad. How about you deal with that lot without implicating all of us? Since ASIC has assumed authority over the industry, those bureaucratic overpaid boffins are paid to make us all, the hard working professionals that don’t have the Governor general’s resources to fight back, suffer professional negligence accusations. There has to be a better regulatory body that knows how to manage with the industry.
If 5 weeks of electoral crap taught us only one thing, it must be ” it depends on the question”
Please define stakeholder.
Whats a “gatekeeper”
I suspect most of this comes from experience with bank owned dealers
Will ASIC now accept that vertical integration and FOFA ( while it lasts) is a conflict in terms
For too many years FP was abut selling product to obtain commissions.
Trust has to be earned – it is not a right. It can take many years to garner trust and can be lost in a fleeting moment.
For the average punter how do they decide which FP to trust?
And that is the problem for so many, as often we are dealing with the largest financial asset and one bad move can wipe out many years of gains.
Do we expect punters to trust us because we have a good beside manner?
OK, I give in, I have been beaten to a pulp over the last few years, no one has a good word to say about advisers, and it appears that there is not a journalist out there that is prepared to print a good word about us! Regardless of haw many great advisers there are oout there we are continually all shoved into the rotten apple barrel!!!!!
Adviser questions ASIC stupidity to get involved in popularity polling.
Good Comment Ben. I also wonder whether the regulators and lawyers really know what the attitude of many planners’ existing clients is? Most reputable planners have disconnected themselves from institutional sales channels and guided their clients through the GFC. Good will is at a high level and it is the clients who do NOT want to have techno/legal fact finds/Risk profiles that are incomprehensible and the general crap that seems to be never-endingly generated by non adviser professionals looking to “help”. Let these professions face fines and legal sanctions for non production of FDS’s and best interest obligations. Perhaps if the ominous silence from the institutions, heavily conflicted by their mandates to ISN funds, changed to support of reputable advice businesses we would all be better off?
What the hell? Why would this even be commissioned? Spend the money taking down the fraudsters and dodgy brothers, not on this kind of rubbish. Oh and BTW I would not trust many from ASIC to help my grandmother cross the road, let alone do their actual jobs.
It’s time for a revolution. This ASIC mob have blood on their hands as do the so called industry stakeholders. The suburban adviser is continuing to be slaughtered whilst they tread water in another ream of paperwork. A new body representing legitimate, valued advisers needs to be created. The existing bodies from all fronts are an abomination. They should all look at themselves very closely in the mirror. We have all had a gutful!
Interested to know the figure for ASIC’s integrity as rated by ‘industry and non-industry stakeholders”
AND the ISN has less than that. What integrity do those mongrel have?
ASIC should be ashamed with this statistic. They are the ones charged with the responsibility of building trust in the system. They allowed the Industry Funds to wage a decade long misleading and damaging advertising campaign against financial advisers. The purpose of which, was to win market share and control the whole supply chain. It worked and now millions of Australians are too afraid to seek the advice they need. It is time for a culture change at ASIC. Let’s hope the Coalition hold them to account.
Hells bells – looks bad yet they can give tax advice without a license and an accountant can’t even tell a client to lease new equipment unless he is an FP.
But what we ARE not TOLD , is how many of these defaulting FPS are accountants!
This is becoming REALLY boring. And to those industry stakeholders – thanks.
I wonder what ASIC are up to now? Every time that want to act against advisers in some way they release a survey that proves that the action is necessary. Possibly an attempt to bolster their position ahead of the new government’s actions to bring common sense back to financial services regulation.
If Advisers were to be surveyed on their confidence in ASIC to do their job in a fair and straightforward manner, I doubt they would get out of single figures.