Eighteen submissions were received during the final consultation period in November and December 2018, FASEA said in a statement.
Following the consultation, FASEA said it clarified aspects of the code, including the values underlying the code, and amending standards around conflicts, the best interests of the client, the effects of advice on the client and adviser record-keeping.
In addition, a guidance document will be released for advisers that includes case studies for each standard.
“The registering of the Code of Ethics represents a significant milestone in providing a framework to lift the ethical and professional standards of financial advisers,” said FASEA chief executive Stephen Glenfield.
Towards the end of last year, the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA), the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA), Boutique Financial Planners (BFP), the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA), the Self-Managed Super Fund Association (SMSF Association), and the Stockbrokers and Financial Advisers Association (SAFAA), signed a co-operative agreement to develop and submit an ethics code monitoring scheme to ASIC, which will then enable FASEA to monitor and enforce compliance with the scheme.
Under the agreement, all existing advisers will be required to subscribe to an approved scheme by 15 November 2019.
With only a few days left until the election, I am hard pressed to find anyone who will vote for the Morrison Government as a result of Fasea. Most people will be voting for a minor party…Like in Wentworth…25000+ advisers, plus support staff…will make it hard for whoever gets in.
Standard 3: You must not advise, refer or act in any other manner where you have a conflict of interest or duty.
Given the number of empty academic halls I’ve seen, the Universities that look like empty Chinese cities, the reports that the University will be able to trade out of a loss by hoping the currency might move in the right direction, the number of redundancies I’ve seen in the University sector….the Vice Chancellor reports that reads like the reports of a National Sales Manager..forgive me if I’m a little skeptical. Forgive me when I predict there will be a Mark Brimble Lecture Hall at Griffith University.
There is a lot of talk about conflicts of interest in that code.
Yet the people involved can’t understand that when you get royalty payments from writing compulsory set text books or your academic life is partially based on student enrollments how this role possibly could not be perceived as a conflict of interest. They cannot appreciate how important and fundamental life changing FASEA is and how important it was to have all advisers on board with these changes by having impartial parties involved.
If this code of conduct was applied to their own academic life/ businesses they’d FAIL
[b]FASEA and it’s Board must be made to disclose ALL conflicts of interest. [/b]
Hey FASEA!!! You impose ‘conflict of interest’ bans on advisers YET I am still waiting for a promised call from the CEO at FASEA from 2 weeks ago to discuss the very samer conflict of interest I believe you have forcing advisers to undertake unnecessary education through campuses I’m lead to believe you have financial links too!!!
What a disgrace…how hypocritical is this!!!
I have left many message with FASEA and they never call back – hell they don’t even answer the phone.
What did you expect? The Director of Standards at FASEA came from AMP!
Definitely conflicts of interest when it comes to the studies required on Ethics I. Assessed on a 120hr course provided by Universities ii. Assessed again in the 3.5hr exam iii. Assessed via 9hrs of CPD AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN every year. How many ways can you skin a cat? Oh, I wonder which organisation is the well-known market leader in providing Ethics training? Would that be The Ethics Centre? Is not the CEO of The Ethics Centre a FASEA Board member? Which organisation has potentially the most $$$ to gain from providing ethics training? I wonder….
the whole industry is a joke. after i. you do the ethics at the university, ii. then again in the exam, iii. then cpd 9 hours, if you had to join an association such as the FPA and do their CFP, you would do ethics again (iv)
so 3 x times ethics then 9 hours ongoing for the rest of your life while practicing.
who comes up with this stuff. it’s hilarious. probably a room fool of academics
This is shocking. Check out the explanatory statement. They have effectively banned self-employed financial planners. No portion of an advisers income can be linked to the volume of products recommended. So no asset-based fees or no insurance commissions. Before the independent adviser activists get carried away, flat dollar fees liked to the number of products (eg. one fee rate for a super account, a higher fee rate for an additional investment account, another fee for insurance advice….whoops, it’s linked to the volume of products; plus, if you are charging an hourly rate, it will take longer to write the statement of advice if you recommend half a dozen investments, rather than a single balanced fund, so there is no way around it). Self-employed advisers are effectively banned by FASEA from 1 Jan 2020. Only the completely conflicted salesforce (ahem) I mean customer retention staff (cough cough) I mean financial advisers employed by the banks and industry super funds will be allowed to operate.
Wow as simple as give the broadest powers possible to FASEA to control the whole industry via a BS code, not just Over the Top Re-education for many well qualified Advisers.
[b]Now FASEA will control adviser / client remuneration agreements too. [/b]
But wait there is more – [b]”You will also need to consider whether your product recommendations should be [u]limited[/u] to “ethical” or “responsible” investments.”[/b] So apparently FASEA are now also GOD of ALL investments and only Ethical Investments will cut the mustard. Or you better have a good reason why any investment is not Ethical.
REALLY – is this for freaking REAL ????????
I know, these so-called ‘ethical investment’ companies must be laughing all the way to the bank. I wonder if any FASEA directors sit on the board of one of these firms? These investments would make up a fraction of one percent of the investable universe, yet apparently we need to run an assessment and make an argument for why we have not recommended them for every client, every time we deliver advice. It is so nuts, it wouldn’t be funny in an episode of ‘Utopia’ because it would be too far fetched. FASEA need to be held to account for this farcical nonsense.
it could all work if the industry worked together. we could be like GP’s essentially.
– product and advice is separated, big F+ to hayne on that, did not address root cause of systemic failures
– we have an independent industry funded research body that approves products issued by financial institutions AS well as an industry funded compensation fund that provides relief for product failure
– we are all self licensed and we essentially do the strategy and recommend the product pre- approved, we all hold PI ourselves, clients can implement themselves
– the government makes financial advice tax deductible or funded like the medicare bulk billing system
– the result, everyone has access to quality financial advice, funded by the taxpayer, future governments will have less pension liability (which will be more than the tax deduction)
– financial advisors become a professional with public interest at our core and also a very good way to make a living with the added benefit of dignity (meaning no humiliation) and self determination
I will not join any of these groups until we get a adviser group that actually works on our behalf like LICG.
Don to get a lobby group together please consider joining the UFAA. Unfortunantly we are railroaded into being a member of one of the associations as we need it for the TPB registration, and now for these damn codes of practice. How many hangers on can one planner support? Lets see shall we, who we pay for very little actual service. We pay dealerships, we pay PI, we pay TPB fees, we pay Professional association fees, soon we will also pay ASIC levy. That many hands out its like being in a beggars paradise.
Donald Donald Donald. The LICG is as useful for this profession as Donald Trump is for global cooperation.
Unless everyone gets on board we will stay fractured and weak don’t people understand this. We need something to unite everyone, then we could actually yield some power like our detractors do. It may be hard for people to imagine as we have always just rolled over, however there a lots of great people in this industry that could be working together and actually making a really big difference. Public opinion drives policy, this is the way these days. Changing it isn’t easy, but it can be done.