On Monday, Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones announced that the government has reappointed 24 members to the Financial Services and Credit Panel (FSCP) for a three‑year period beginning on 1 January 2025.
The FSCP was formed at the start of 2022 to support the Better Advice Bill, with the panel established within the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) as the single disciplinary body for financial advisers.
ASIC is responsible for convening individual panels to consider disciplinary matters. Each panel must consist of a chair (an ASIC staff member) and at least two other members, which ASIC must select from a list of eligible persons appointed by the minister.
“The candidates bring with them a range of knowledge and experience across the fields of business, administration of companies, financial markets, financial products and financial services, law, economics, accounting, taxation and credit activities and credit services,” Jones said.
The reappointed members are:
Shabnam Amirbeaggi, Debra Anderson, Julie‑Anne Berry, Kathryn Brown, Gabrielle Bouffler, Donna Caird, James Cotis, Don Crellin, Bruce Debenham, Hamish Dee, Dr Jennifer Diggle, Brad Fox, David Giovanelli, William Hamilton, Katherine Hayes, Ross Illingworth, Chris MacEachern, Melissa Nolan, Peter Richards, Samantha Robinson, Kevin Smith, Gary Toomey, Lauren Walker, and Matthew Wigzell.
Ian Chambers, Gary Croker, Gary Deegan, Nicholas Hilton, David Murray, Craig Stephens, and Judith Sullivan are the current members that will not return for a further three years.
“These reappointments will continue the high level of skills and experience available to the FSCP, to help ensure that key sectors of our economy are regulated effectively,” Jones said.
The FSCP’s decisions are, for the most part, anonymised, with neither the register nor a press release typically disclosing the name of the financial adviser involved in a particular matter unless the outcome is required to be displayed on the Financial Advisers Register (FAR).
While the single disciplinary body for financial advisers kicked off in January 2022, it did not hand down its first decision until June 2023, when it found that an adviser, known only as “Mr S”, had contravened the Corporations Act and directed him to provide three successive compliance audits from their licensee in relation to personal advice they have given to retail clients, with at least 12 months between the audits.
In its most recent decision, the FSCP suspended the registration of financial adviser Ian Reid for three months, effective 21 November 2024, for failing to comply with his obligations when providing advice to three clients.
FSCP is NOT a single disciplinary body. It is just one of MANY disciplinary bodies financial advisers are subject to.
This announcement highlights the deeply troubling lack of transparency that continues to plague the Financial Services and Credit Panel (FSCP). While courts proudly attach the names of judges to their rulings, the FSCP hides behind a veil of anonymity. This secrecy leaves us in the dark about whether decisions are unanimous or divided, and how ASIC staff members, now influenced by the adviser-adverse mindset of former CHOICE CEO Alan Kirkland, are voting compared to the so-called “industry participants.”
What is the profession meant to glean from the FSCP’s opaque, generic rulings? Unlike AFCA, which publishes detailed determinations that advisers can learn from, the FSCP offers little more than high-level references to the Corporations Act and the Code of Ethics. This token effort denies financial advisers the opportunity to understand or improve based on case precedents.
The FSCP, as it stands, is an overly powerful, secretive body that provides no functional utility to the profession it claims to oversee. Its operations are not just ineffective but also fundamentally unfair. A major overhaul—or, better yet, its complete dissolution—is urgently needed. If meaningful reform isn’t on the horizon, we would be better off without this black box of discipline altogether.