The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said on Friday it has banned former mortgage broker and property spruiker Christine Betty Childs from providing financial services for eight years.
ASIC banned Mrs Childs, a former director of Think Money and Think Money Wealth Through Property, for operating an unlicensed financial services business. Mrs Childs was found to have recommended clients to invest in property through their superannuation, which included advising them to rollover their existing superannuation into self-managed superannuation funds.
According to ASIC, this conduct misled or deceived Mrs Child’s clients who reasonably assumed that she was appropriately licensed to give them such advice.
In addition to operating without a license, Mrs Childs was found by the regulator to have been involved in several other misconducts. Firstly, she was said to have played a significant role in Think Money’s failure to comply with an Australian Financial Complaints Authority decision to compensate one of its clients. Secondly, ASIC found that Mrs Childs had participated in the disposal of the company’s trail book of commissions before its liquidation, which had resulted in creditors of Think Money suffering losses due to reduced funds for distribution.
The ban prevents Mrs Childs from providing financial services, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business, and performing any function involved in carrying on a financial services business.
She has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
Next time she might get a lifetime ban…! Would have thought a fine and/or jail time would have been a better deterrent as many have pointed
out already?
No different to fining and extending a licence disqualification for someone convicted of driving without a licence and having unpaid fines… What a laugh.
With the face of accounting changing. There are plenty of individuals out there advising SMSF invest in property. Accounting firms are becoming expert in business tax advice (which they are best to do this) and some have taken to property / Agriculture developments. Partnering up with mortgage lenders. This is a cancer spreading across Australia. This lady will not be the last to be found out. None of these players are licensed to give advice on property investment using SMSF money. Why wasn’t this person put in Jail or at least heavily find and banned from providing any financial product. Certainly question why I pay to hold a license………
Wow feel the full force of ASIC Christine! Very big penalities applied in this case.
Banning someone who is already unlicensed is pointless, she can just carry on the same and not be under the jurisdiction of AFCA or ASIC and life goes on.
Will she also pay for the ASIC cost, or do the licenced planners need to fund this as well?
Of course the licensed planners will be stung with this fee what a disgrace
She was never licensed in the first place so now putting a ban on her will do what? This happens all over the place – unregistered and unlicensed persons doing the wrong thing. I guess it’s getting one at a time but it’s going to take years to clean this up.
So her punishment is to ban her from doing something she was never allowed to do. Wow! She must be crushed.
What difference does it make that someone who has never been authorised to provide advice is now banned from proving advice?????? if they didnt care in the first place, what difference will this make?
How can you ban someone from doing what they are not legally able to do?
And where is the SMSF Association’s responsibility in these matters?
agree