Mr Houghton was found to have created false documents by “cutting and pasting” client signatures onto letters nominating himself as the clients’ adviser, had submitted insurance application forms on behalf of clients with incorrect information, didn’t make reasonable inquiries into clients’ objectives or financial situation, and failed to conduct reasonable investigation into financial products that might help clients achieve those objectives.
ASIC’s surveillance looked at client files from Mr Houghton’s time as an authorised representative of Financial Wisdom and cross-endorsed as an authorised representative of Commonwealth Financial Planning (July 2013 – January 2015), and his time with Dover Financial Advisers (January 2015 – October 2016).
“Consumers should be confident that their financial adviser is honest and acting in their best interests,” said ASIC deputy chair Peter Kell.
“ASIC will continue to take action and remove advisers who engage in serious misconduct and breach community trust.”
UPDATE 5 December 2023: ifa has been advised by lawyers representing Koresh Houghton that ASIC lifted the permanent ban on Koresh Houghton from providing financial services and credit activities on 24 September 2023.
Perhaps you should be looking at Synchron for the compliance lazy. I know of someone who joined there with a terrible compliance record. Scary!
I’ve worked for a bank and endorse McGlashen’s comments and I currently work with Dover. If you think Dover is soft on compliance I suggest you give them a try. You might find it a very short and terminal experiment. They will take you on easily because they know they are going to check every SOA and if they don’t stack up you will get 2 weeks notice. They are my fourth licensee over my career and by far the toughest on compliance and best interest.
I thought Dover were a no commission outfit, if there were no commission then there would have been no incentive (to give advice let alone commit fraud)?
Nevertheless, Dover’s owner usually has plenty to say, we’ll hear his version of the truth in time. He’ll draft his response (editorial/advertorial) once he gets down off his lofty soapbox.
Hi Horrified (I genuinely hope that’s not your name), Dover advisers are able to receive commissions; the key point of our model is that Dover as a dealer group is not remunerated by anyone else- a flat fee by its ARs. That’s it.
Terry is having a well earned break at the moment so you’ll have to wait patiently for his response. Feel free to pick up the phone though if you would like to have a chat with me instead.
I can fix up your misconception for you, if you like. It is always important to be accurate. At Dover, we pass on 100% of commissions (and any other client fees) received to our advisers. Advisers pay Dover a fixed monthly fee (in arrears) regardless of their level of activity. This means that Dover does not retain any commissions – we pass them on to advisers in their entirety. Dover’s only source of revenue is fees paid directly to us by advisers. No shelf fees, ‘sponsorships,’ etc. Our staff even bought their own Grand Final tickets. Adviser’s fees are capped until at least mid-2019. In return for their fee, Dover advisers are authorised to practice and receive comprehensive compliance services. Yes, lawyers in Melbourne review every SOA (and its supporting file) before it goes to a client. We find having no financial interest in the particular advice makes for an unusually genuine review. Dover is no place to be lazy, as the article above makes clear.
For the same fee, advisers also receive product-free CPD delivered online and face to face, websites (full development, hosting using the adviser’s own domain name & content), comprehensive online fact finders linked automatically to SOA-writing software, and unlimited legal documents to establish things like trusts and SMSFs. An in-house CRM is currently under development. They also get 100% of their commissions each fortnight. And absolutely no pressure from head office to sell anything. As long as you’re compliant, we leave you to it. But we make sure you are compliant.
Happy to clear up any other misconceptions people may have.
I worked in an organisation that was a start up and they checked every SOA that went out, made sense for the beginning as there were some green advisers. however the turnaround times were ridiculous.
There is no way I would work with a dealer group that vetted every SOA before it went to a client, not because I am worried but because it is inefficient. I have told my dealer group everything is electronically stored and they can review me whenever they like, no notice required.
They vetted me when I joined, put me through a rigorous prevet process, and when they were comfortable I posed no risk to the dealer group or clients they allowed ME to take RESPONSIBILITY for my advice and they retrospectively review me through a national team annually and a local team quarterly.
Dover either accepts people they shouldn’t, have a very low level of trust or an agreement (call it what you will) with ASIC to have oversight of every piece of advice. I have met a few advisers and there may well be a well founded combination of all 3.
Either way, I will stay away.
As promised, happy to clear up misconceptions. There is much to say, but I will keep it brief:
Your last paragraph is simply wrong. Dover’s SOA reviews have nothing to do with trust or selection and there is no ‘agreement with ASIC.’ (You suggest we “call it what you will.” Why don’t we call it “something you just made up?”)
We review all SOAs before they go to a client. Experienced advisers enjoy same day ‘turnaround’ on their SOAs – provided, of course, that the advice is in the client’s best interests. Reviewing advice before it goes to a client is a logical – and highly efficient – way to comply with the law, especially the best interests duty. That duty applies a ‘reasonable adviser test.’ When qualified, trained reviewers agree that advice is in a client’s best interests, they stand in the shoes of the ‘reasonable adviser.’ Once you accept that, it makes sense to apply the principle of ‘before the event’ reviews universally. That is what systemic compliance means.
When you stop and think about it, what professional adviser would not enjoy an informed, timely second opinion on all of their work? After all, the problem with self-assessment is the assessor. And the problem with doing all of your reviews retrospectively is that you are doing all of your reviews retrospectively.
[b]If you dare to let this be published:[/b]
Dover advisers [b]mainly consist of :[/b][u][/u]
a. [b]very low[/b][u][/u] quality and inactive advisers (losers), who do not know how to build websites and or know what a CRM is and;
b.are only RG 146 compliant – even barely that and;
c. unsuccessful people generally and;
i dare you to publish this and for people to go and inspect it for themselves – at one of Dover advisers training days – you will leave ashamed
i have three masters degrees, i am ashamed these people can call themselves advisers, [b]you are not, you are nobody’s, you are nothings, [/b][u][/u]you shameful gibberish smelly crap
vamoosh from my sight scum
in the market, Dover, and their advisers are known as low quality and have a very poor reputation and regard.
in my personal experience, having met a few Dover advisers, they were all:
a. terrible business people and;
b. terribly qualified and;
c. least experienced and;
d. most unqualified and;
e. most stupid
f. and most retarded
dover’s afsl should be cancelled ASIC please ruin them!
Dover barely has any complaints against them. I read somewhere that per capata they are amongst the best in terms of complaint numbers. I am a Dover adviser who is degree qualified in finance and DFP qualified too. My business has turned a profit every year also. Am i a terrible business person, terribly qualified, lack experience, stupid and retarded?
As for you, I can’t even find you on the adviser register.
Pretty sure the conversation went something along the lines as follows:….[i].Hi Koresh, I know we just gave you a staff home loan at 3% for $1.5 million and you’ve just brought a new home, and I know your wife is pregnant, and I know you gave away a very good job just 6 months ago to become a planner here with us at CBA…. but if you don’t meet your insurance target this month you won’t be here in a months time.. other than that please keep up the good work. PS also, it just became compulsory to join the FPA as part of a deal with ASIC some mumbo jumbo about a code of ethics… but don’t worry we paid the membership fees for you…subject to you remaining employed at the CBA for 12 months post payment of course. Kind regards CBA management.[/i]
You are a complete goose
i love you McGlashen. to the point each and every-time. this industry is run by retards – no offence to the retards.
No doubt rated highly by Adviserratings, having a Gold Star ranking, so it must be rubbish….not.. Also interesting is that he was banned recently but ceased being an adviser in October 2016 after a year at Dover. Did CBA auditors bring this to the attention of ASIC or did Dover bring this to the attention of ASIC or did ASIC find out as part of their investigation into CBA, or did the adviser just volunteer the information.or did a client say something.interesting.. this is where these ASIC press releases don’t really help.
reckon he would have learned the dodgy stuff at the bank though
Talk about editorialising – looks like he was being dodgy at Dover longer than CBA. Clearly, there is a lack of supervision of new advisers going on at Dover which should be questioned, and very questionable reference checking.
doesn’t everybody know what dealer group to join when you get lazy?
Proper compliance management operates in the realm of the boutique space. CBA’s legacy compliance systems are clearly not cutting the mustard.
Are you serious, there is a lot of “trust” offered in the boutique space and little in the aligned
Former CBA adviser… I suppose “Dover adviser” hasn’t got the same ring to it!
IFA – Why did you only choose CBA in your headlines and omitted Dover ???? Is that it doesn’t suit your Independent mantra??
I’m not sure that the CBA headline is helpful when it appears the conduct that led to the banning was conducted with what you would refer to as `IFA’.