On Monday, the accounting industry association issued a statement insinuating that financial planners are “bereft of integrity”, which prompted more than 120 comments on the ifa website – most of them voicing strong opposition – and calls for an apology from the Financial Planning Association.
Yesterday, the association’s board was apparently in a scheduled “board meeting” for more than five hours and was unable to arrange a phone interview, take a phone call from ifa or issue a public statement before deadline.
ifa understands a statement may be forthcoming later today.
The association came under increasing pressure yesterday as the fallout from Monday’s attack on the integrity of the financial planning sector continued.
Shadow minister for financial services Mathias Cormann entered the fray, rebuking the association for its disruptive comments, describing them as “reckless and irresponsible”.
“Financial planners and advisers provide a very important service helping people to improve their financial health and well-being by managing financial risks and maximising opportunities,” the Senator said.
“Overwhelmingly the industry operates at a very high standard with planners and advisers totally focused on and committed to the best interest of their clients”.
More to come.
As i said last week, I’ve owned both an accounting & Fin Planning business. I’ve been a Financial Planner for over 26 years. My experience with NTAA accountants is that when I mention something like TTR to them , they ask me to explain & then get nervous & start talking about part IVa. They reiterate how they do a great job keeping the client out of jail (which means its best to do the bare min, charge as much as they think the client might pay & thats ok). Many NTAA members I’ve come across only really know how to file a tax return & a bit about CGT – they are very basic accountants & many of them are dinosaurs with their original 1970’s office furniture still in place. NTAA all i can say is “people living in glass houses….”. When they say talk to an accountant for Fin Advise instead of a Fin planner they must be joking!!!
Its funny. I thought the ifa was a forum for Advisers to share views and gather information about current issues. All I am seeing lately is my colleagues defending themselves against the bloggers who obviously have nothing better to do than post inflammatory remarks. They are not interested in the outcome of the debate but rather the five seconds of notoriety
their comments ellicit. Which is ironic, seeing as how they post anonymously. I have found that even graffiti artists are proud to put their names against their work. Where does that place the trollers on this forum in the scheme of things?
bully king hit planners and then run & hide like rabbits. NTAA comments indicate they wouldn’t know what professional actually means.
Gee Guys.
Financial Planners must be somewhere near journalists, used car salesman and real estate agents on the ‘integrity’ list.
Has anyone kept check of the FPs deregistered and jailed over the past 18 months, or the number of financial product providers who have failed, or the hundered$ of million$ of mum and dad dollar$ lost – through the recommendation$ of financial planner$ ????
And also you do not realise that maybe CAs, CPAs and IPAs comprise a considerable % of NTAA membership?
Of course because all she was trying to do was have accountants sign up to her dealer by bagging planners. Unprofessional and comments on the Run like labor
There an education course on Integrity and Ethic’s at Kaplan that all members of the NTAA can do after this debacle. All members of the NTAA should be made to redo it because this public relations fiasco is surely a breach of any ethical code they must have. Do accountants have any ethics? Do they have any Integrity? If they do its about time they spoke out.
Generalisations in the context used in the NTAA statement are useless and inflamatory as are leop’s comments in his 2nd paragraph below.
Let’s put the focus back on putting client’s interests first for all goods and services businesses. If that were the case I wonder whether we would have so many SMSF’s, family trusts, living wills, complex estate plans, litigation etc etc.
Nothing is gained by NTAA and leop’s generalisations eg. “that planners can be, and have been, ‘bereft of integrity'”.
I’m a financial planner and I maintain a high level of integrity and I’m sure most financial planners do the same. Can every accountant, solicitor or other professional claim a high level of integrity – I don’t think so.
Leop not to mention the millions of dollars lost by investors on tax effective products such as Great Southern, Timbercorp, FEA plantations, vineyards, olives, almonds, etc recommended by their accountants. Time for some self reflection perhaps!
I agree it was badly worded criticism.
We legislate a lot of human behaviour: financial accounts need to be ‘true and fair’, its a directors duty to act in good faith, we legislate that you shouldn’t steal or murder etc etc.
All this is common sense yet we legislate it. So it is very silly to suggest planners are ‘bereft of integrity’ because we legislate they act in their clients best interests. That is a wholly irresponsible criticism. The legislation is consistent with prior legislation.
The criticism should be based on the many thousands of Australian families that remain in ruins due to poor financial advice and that planners can be, and have been, ‘bereft of integrity’ for people to find themselves in that situation.
Badly worded criticism indeed, but not untrue and not worthy of an apology. Planners need to improve their reputation in the community.
Don’t expect them to have the guts to own up on this, there will be some weasel word apology only. Whilst being reckless and irresponsible. The proponent of the article may not exist. Could it be a hoax? Could the NTAA actual come out of this professional disaster with just egg on the face. Or is it something more sinister?