Robert Hutchison, of Lower Chittering in Western Australia, was an authorised representative of RI Advice between 14 May 2007 and 30 November 2012, ASIC said in a statement. RI Advice is a licensee owned by OnePath, a subsidiary of ANZ Banking Group.
ASIC said an investigation found that between January 2011 and November 2012 Mr Hutchison dishonestly banked cheques he received from his clients for advice fees directly into his personal bank account, when he knew he was obliged to remit or report them to RI Advice.
Mr Hutchison then deducted additional fees from his clients’ investment platform or financial product for payment to RI Advice, the statement said.
In addition, Mr Hutchison failed to record the receipt of the cheques on RI Advice’s payment system.
ASIC noted that Mr Hutchison misled or deceived his clients by failing to disclose to them that they had been double charged advice fees and failed to comply with the proper process for remitting and reporting the fees.
He also misled or deceived RI Advice by failing to disclose that he had deposited the advice fees into his own account and did not comply with RI Advice’s relevant fees, policies and procedures.
“ASIC will continue to protect consumers by removing people from the financial services industry who act dishonestly and breach the trust of their clients,” said ASIC deputy chairman Peter Kell.
Mr Hutchison has the right to appeal in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision, the statement said.
I’m a bit confused. I agree that this adviser should be banned for this practice but we have just seen the major instos fraudulently charging fees for advice services not being delivered yet not one senior exec who was responsible for this has been banned.
It seems that if you are a member of the dodgy FSC cartel you are immune from any responsibility by ASIC. Just reimburse the money and take not be responsible??
Why was this guys not just told to reimburse the money??
Double standards ASIC??
So did ANZ/RI have him up on fraud? Because if they did he would not of been licensed till this week with Infocus? Why has it taken ASIC nearly 5 years to Ban him? Look I’m all for innocent till proven guilty but 5 years is too long, and a man has to eat in the meantime but someone has some explaining to do.
Get a clue! Generally fraud is a criminal matter and only the Police and DPP decide whether to allege a crime has taken place and prosecute. Don’t post if you don’t know your stuff – which you have now done twice. Fraud is not even mentioned here. Law & Order much?
That’s not true at all Jape. An organisation or individual who suspects they are the victim of a fraud actually reports the matter to police. ANZ/RI are definitely allowed to report the matter to police. The police then investigate the matter, not the DPP. If the police investigation concludes there are reasonable grounds to suspect an offence has been committed they then report/arrest the suspect and hand the matter onto either the police prosecution section (or DPP if considered a major indictable offence)
Funny how on this same day we see a RI Advisor being banned for life for duping clients in regards to the payment of there fees and yet CBA came out today and stated 1076 cases of poor advice resulting in losses and no one has been banned. So is the solution when you do something wrong you just put your hand up and say we’ll have an internal enquiry and offer compensation where we feel it’s appropriate.
Hi mistake was not being a member of Senior Management at the CBA. They would of let him go.
Looks like ASIC are starting to focus more on that best interest duty that sits with an adviser, rather than just getting the insto to reimburse client losses. That new ABA protocol will catch out some advisers moving camp after being caught. Life ban, haven’t seen that much before!
Another limited information release from ASIC, ANZ aligned advisor, doesn’t mention his time at NEO then Infocus,. so we are to believe he became a model corporate citizen once he left ANZ’s embrace?
Or did NEO and Infocus just ignore the behaviour where ANZ raised it up?
Haven’t you poked the elephant in the room!
Actually, I doubt it was NEO or Infocus ignoring behaviour but more ANZ not giving full and honest information for either 1/ fear that they may breach the adviser’s privacy by telling the truth and open themselves to legal action or 2/ they needed him to go and knew an honest reference wouldn’t get rid of him. It happens all too often.
While not disputing the legal technicalities in this case, many clients do find it unsettling having to pay fees to a “licensee” who they have never dealt with, rather than the adviser who provided their service. Bizarre system.
100% agree with that. Most clients find it very strange. Even worse is the wording that our licensee has in the SOA that to me makes me sound like a criminal “under no circumstances is any fees to be paid directly to the adviser….” , which I change to say “it’s a requirement of the Corps Act that all fees are paid to the AFSL holder….” I also explain that ASIC are pretty lazy like most public servants and that they would prefer to deal with a small number of larger AFSLs compared to having all advisers individually licensed, so they make it harder and more expensive.
I think we’re being a little too hard on these guys. With the right training they could sell millions more dollars in business #givethemanotherchance