In a determination handed down on 10 February, recently published on the FPA website, the CRC decided to expel Mr Tindall, issue the fine and also ordered the former Roan Financial authorised representative to pay the FPA’s additional costs and expenses at a value of $12,423.39.
The decision follows ASIC’s decision to only temporarily ban Mr Tindall from providing financial services for a period of five years.
The regulator found he had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct on a client’s behalf by failing to disclose their pre-existing medical conditions on an insurance application submitted to an insurer.
Mr Tindall also engaged in dishonest conduct by not disclosing the medical conditions in transferring that insurance obtained to a new insurer, the ASIC statement said.
The FPA previously issued a press release announcing Mr Tindall to be guilty of “misleading, deceptive, dishonest and fraudulent conduct” prior to his temporary ban by the corporate regulator.
Seriously you lot? Where have you been for the past seven years. OF COURSE the FPA is taking a quasi-regulatory role, even if that’s news to this publication. It’s what a professional association does. And it gets its authority to fine you when you sign up to it. The $16k should go to the FPA so it can continue to weed out the Tindalls of the world. If you want some sorry adviser cheer squad to belong to, to complain about changes you can’t understand and make you feel better about being a dinosaur, join the AIOFP or something like that. Or better still, quit now.
Humorously well said, like to see a little venting on here.
Likewise, any advisers who believe the FPA are utterly out of touch with everyday practitioners should seriously consider changing associations as well – it is meant to be a two way street.
What you’re reading below can also be attributed to a lack of real communication from the FPA to members, and a disconnect by the FPA with what a very large portion of their members actually want.
Mate. I get my education from an education organisation not a self interest group.
So far I have 2 degrees and a masters. I don’t need to maintain membership to anything so I can be part of this group. My exam results get me entry not cash..
Plus all the other stuff Asic require me to do. SMSF, Shares, Estate Planning etc etc..
But you deluded yourself that there is no conflict or self interest and that this is how the industry should be..
Cornflake… Well said, I am in the same position educationally, as yourself, do I join the FPA, no as I do not believe they act in our interests. So what do I do, I run my own licence, and am a member of the AFA, but, this organisation has let us down dearly and I am looking at leaving. I am of the belief that we DO NOT need to belong to any “professional organisation” as it seems they are all corrupt and bend to institutional pressures to line their own pockets. Oh… nearly forgot, it is a springboard for the CEO to get a job when they leave on the board of a group they have cosied up to during their tenure.
What about all the Institutions that are members of the FPA… Millions of dollars… And the reputational damage to our industry. Not even worth a press releases… Now where did the previous head of the FPA get a job???
What a disgrace the FPA is. If I was a CFP id walk out from having some pride in my professionalism but that would mean you didn’t have an education… What a ridiculous circular system of cronyism and protectionism the FPA as made for themselves in an industry where we are trying to move away from conflict..
Was this bloke an actual CFP. i.e did he do the study or was he a breakfast box CFP? Send in the coupons and join..
There aren’t any institutions in the FPA. There haven’t been for years. It’s been a practitioner-only association since its restructuring. It is funded my membership fees paid by individual, practising financial planners. I sincerely hope your technical and financial knowledge is not as out of date as your knowledge of your own industry. It’s a disgrace, this kind of ill-informed commentary, and no wonder the public thinks the industry needs to lift its game.
the majority of which are licensed/controlled by the institutions, as is the fpa
Sorry mate, Wrong,. many CFP members who had there fees paid by an insto have been banned..
And also why did the remove insto.. The perception of no conflict.. Where did the last FPA boss get a new job at?? Was that cause he attacked them and held them to account?
This “result” is probably window dressing, for public and ASIC consumption…but it dose also raise the issue of conflict of interest between insurer/product manufacturer members and “adviser/agent/product selling” members and I’d ask will FPA fine insurers who similarly misrepresent their claims/benefits regimes?
I’d be interested to know what they fined CBA, Macquarie and all the rest when ASIC handed out their enforceable undertakings!
Think it through. CBA, Macquarie and “all the rest” are not members of the FPA. Explain how an association can fine an entity that is not one of its members, and has not signed up to its terms of membership – I’d love to hear the explanation. It can take disciplinary action against individual planners, because that’s who it represents, but not against any individual or institution that is not a member. It’s easy to understand, if you keep up with what’s been going on in the industry for the better part of the past decade.
Don’t pay it. Why would you listen to anything this corrupt outfit says.
The FPA has done nothing but destroy this industry chasing their own agenda and
revenue. Your days will be numbered FPA. There will not be advisers left to afford your ridiculous regime in a few years.
“Their own agenda and revenue” comes from their thousands of members – who vote for the board (have a look at its composition and then come back and let us know if you think it’s not representative enough), and who pay membership fees – and who are free to leave any time they want. It is not (yet) compulsory to be a member of a professional association, but very soon it will be. If you’re not in one (a real one, not the Mickey Mouse variety we see around us today) when the time comes, you can kiss your career goodbye. The mentality of financial planners who see themselves as victims of some large, organised conspiracy is laughable. You reap what you sow. Take some responsibility: what you see happening today – what has been happening for years and years – is an understandable and desirable response to the ills of the past. Be grateful that the coming revolution doesn’t go even further than it already will.
Compulsory to be a member of a professional association? How? There aren’t any. The FPA might be the least unprofessional association. It might be the slightly more professional than it used to be association. But while it continues with the nonsense of grandfathered CFPs, it can’t be called a true professional association.
That’s why we are now getting a govt controlled education standards body. That’s why CFPs don’t get an exemption from the govt exam. The FPA needs to clean up its act in relation to grandfathered CPPs right now if it wants to be taken seriously as a professional association. Otherwise ownership of the CFP program should be given to a less conflicted organisation.
FPA = Stooge for banks – FPA have stated publically that they no longer represent the interests of advisers and the FPA have supported every detrimental policy against advisers and consumers. Time to leave the FPA they are out of touch, financed by the banks and detrimental to all Australians
The reason many advisers are members of the FPA is because they have the exclusive Australian agency for CFP. However the FPA has shown they cannot be trusted with that role, by allowing large numbers of advisers with very little professional education to use the CFP designation. This is misleading to consumers, and devalues the CFP.
The solution to all these problems is for the new govt education body to take over CFP. They could stop those “grandfathered” advisers who have not met a professional level of education from calling themselves CFPs. And advisers could then decide to stay or leave the FPA based purely on the real value the FPA provides.
What about the 10,000 or so members of the FPA who are not CFPs? Are they in it for the CFP designation? It doesn’t seem so, does it? Agreed, there’s a double standard among CFPs – those who got it through study, and those who got it through grandfathering – and that’s a problem. But that’s an argument against appeasement. Remember, the outcry among planners who might have lost their CFP during earlier changes was absolutely deafening. The same anti-appeasement argument should apply in other areas (i.e. professional standards, education and ethics) right now. Measure up and earn it, or lose it.
10,000 members of FPA who are not CFPs? “Anti-appeasement argument”? WTF???
You got me: wrong numbers. FPA has “more than 12,000 members”, not 15,000. There are approximately 5600 FPAs, so the number of FPA members who are not CFPs numbers “more than 6400”. My bad.
The point about appeasement is that grandfathering CFPs (letting those who didn’t get them through study keep them) was to appease those members. It causes problems later when it’s pointed out there’s two “kinds” of CFP.
The same sort of problem can be avoided now by not appeasing those who oppose higher education/professionalism/ethics standards, or who think they should be grandfathered into the new regime some other way.
That’s all.
I think you will find that the non CFP members of the FPA fall into two groups. One group is those who are studying towards their CFP and are forced to join the FPA as an associate and pay fees along the way until they qualify as CFPs. The other group is people who work for product providers and are there for business development purposes. If a more professional organisation took over the running of CFP, you would probably find most of the genuine practitioner members would have no reason to stay in the FPA, and the BDM members would then have no reason to stay either.
The FPA board has to decide whether they are more concerned about prolonging the sham CFP status of the grandfathers while risking the FPA’s very survival, or whether they want to call time on the grandfathers and transform the FPA into a genuine professional association.
So this is worth a 16,000 fine plus expenses but commonwealrth bank financial planning scandal not worth a mention?? hypocrites
true Stevo..bit of deal there. You make it make compulsory for your planners to join said the FPA & AFA, and we’ll let you tarnish the reputation of the entire financial planning community by allowing you to say Mr CEO that you’re doing something about your problems (buckpassing) and we wont say anything.
Spot on stevo, I believe the CBA annouced last week they had proudly reviewed 8600 files and compensated 1800 victims to the tune of $23Million. Sounds like a lot of money, do the math its an average of $12,778 per victim, and remember many were people who lost their life savings which would have amounted to hundreds of thousands of $$.
definition of kangaroo court!!!
What authority, if any do the FPA to issue a fine? And how can they enforce it be paid?
Interesting indeed.
Members sign a form each year when they renew stating you’ll act in the best interest of clients, prioritize their interest and commit to their codes of conduct, lastly you’ll agree to any findings of a disciplinary review board and pay there fines. Whether you physically pay the fine is then dependent on the outcome of the local magistrate when the argument ends up in the small claims tribunal. Most likely given you’ve signed up year after year, signing the same form electronically, you’ll lose.
That is interesting but he has been expelled from the association making him a member no longer. Good luck in a magistrates court trying to get $16k when he is no longer a member.
If I get done for DUI and face a fine and disqualification, then sell my car and argue I should not be sanctioned, how do you imagine a magistrate might react?
The comments and arguments on these pages against the sanctioning of a financial planner miss the point and are a dismal reflection on the industry. They demonstrate a lack of understanding of – or perhaps a lack of willingness to understand – what professionalism is, what it demands of individuals, and how it is monitored and enforced through professional associations in a co-operative role with regulators.
It would be amusing, if the individuals making these absurd comments did not also believe they were entitled to put themselves in positions of control and influence over people’s life savings.
…and even if it gets to a magistrates court, if he still simply doesn’t pay it, the laws around enforcement are vague at best and can carry on for many years. If he had no intention of rejoining the FPA, it is unlikely that this can really be fully enforced even with the magistrates ruling. This has been a bit of an empty attempt by the FPA to gain publicity more with the Gov, ASIC, media, public and members but hasn’t been well thought through and unfortunately is likely to fall flat at the end of the day.
Who gets the $16K?