In a post on the FactCheck website this morning, ABC researchers rejected Mr Bowen’s claim that the “government’s changes to financial advice laws will bring back the type of commissions that encouraged financial advisers to recommend risky investments”.
Instead, the ABC’s fact checkers have found that the proposed changes will only apply to some forms of general advice” adding that “they do not bring back old-style commissions”, as several commentators have previously told ifa.
“Mr Bowen is scaremongering,” the FactCheck website concludes in its ‘verdict’.
AFA chief operating officer Phil Anderson told the ABC that “licensees, who are responsible for the conduct of their representatives, will not let financial advisers sell products by the means of general advice”.
“Licensees conduct audits on client files to ensure that the advice is appropriate, and they will seek to pick up cases where advice documentation has not been provided to the client,” he added.
The FPA’s Dante De Gori said that while “the Government’s amendments do not bring back commissions for financial planners” that they “may allow the big banks to provide cash incentives to their branch and call centre staff to sell complex investment and superannuation products to customers without taking into account their personal circumstances”.
Bowen was only protecting his mates in the ISA
FactCheck did not mention insurance
Neither the FPA or AFA seem to recognize the threat inherent in allowing bank tellers to sell insurance products over the counter on general advice basis. Same goes for Coles etc
Insurance is too bloody important to be left to these Visigoths
The banks want the market currently occupied by the Direct sellers. Crap products, no advice or service and high short term profits. What could be easier
For risk advisers the danger is that those over the counter products will have the same LOGO as the genuine products sold upstairs by the banks planners
Consumers cant tell the difference. All they care about is the price
Since it is clear that Chris Bowen has misrepresented the facts to the public, should he not be held accountable to the same standards that he would hold financial adviser accountable?
I would agree entirely with the label of “scaremonger” for Chris Bowen as he has continually used the example of Storm Financial in interviews and articles over the last couple of years in an attempt to create an environment of fear and concern to the general public. As destructive and detrimental as the Storm case was to those clients and investors, Chris Bowen chose to use Storm as a prime example of what can happen if FOFA were to be amended.
What Chris Bowen’s scaremongering unfortunately does achieve is to create enough fear and apprehension to convince some people to avoid seeking advice……and that is not a good result regardless of which government is in power.
Seems to me politicians need to get their own act in order. They want to stomp out rogue financial advisers, but if we lied and deceived like the politicians we would be in gaol. As for Bowen, he needs to look at his own exaggerated and misleading claims. I’m over their hypocracy, and sick of our industry being the butt of their frustrations