Insto, boutique dealers respond to ASIC concerns

T

en licensees have made changes to operations after being found guilty of providing "deficient" complex product advice, with a mixture of bank-aligned and independently-owned firms named.

Following a December 2013 review of retail structured products, ASIC has released the details about the actions taken by 10 advice licensees.

An ASIC statement said surveillance and regulatory actions led to:

"Licensees commencing a wider review of relevant advisers and clients to determine whether breaches of disclosure or conduct requirements had occurred, the extent of those breaches, and whether client, adviser and licensee remediation was required;

"Two of the licensees submitting notifications of significant breaches to ASIC one licensee terminating the authorisations of a corporate authorised representative and two individual authorised representatives, after identifying systemic breaches by those representatives, and;

"Other remedial actions by licensees including client compensation, fee or commission refunds, corrective or improved disclosure, increased supervision and monitoring of advisers, and changes to licensees' systems and procedures for providing advice on complex products."

The 10 licensees affected by the probe are:

• Westpac Banking Corporation
• HSBC Bank Australia
• IOOF-aligned Consultum Financial Advisers
• CBA-aligned Count Financial
• AMP-aligned Genesys Wealth Advisers
• NAB-aligned Meritum Financial Group
• MASU Financial Management
• Sentry Financial Services
• Madison Financial Group
• FSS Advisory