In a statement, advice consultancy firm Certainty Advice Group announced it has launched a certification mark for ethical advice — dubbed the ‘Certainty Advice’ mark.
The mark certifies an individual adviser and as per any certification mark, there are checks to ensure compliance and adherence, the statement from Certainty Advice said.
“The mark certifies advisers who adhere to include common approaches: how value is determined for clients, how clients are engaged and re-engaged every year, and how advice is priced without conflict. Being comprehensive and priced on value, it’s different from what most clients have experienced.
Managing director of Certainty Advice Group, Jim Stackpool said, “Since 2005, we have always had a simple objective — consistent and methodical delivery of comprehensive and ethical advice without any real or perceived conflict or incentives. So by creating this new certification mark — called Certainty Advice — we are certifying our approach to not only make it accessible to more advisers, but more Australians.”
Mr Stackpool believes that while the new certification will take some time to take hold in the financial advice world, it will ultimately deliver comprehensive and ethical value for more Australians every year, the statement said.
“It’s not for every adviser, but I do believe this form of financial advice will be more accepted by most Australians by 2030,” Mr Stackpool said
Every practice and every adviser conning their clients with the holy “fee for service” nonsense and $3300 plus soa fees MUST fail an ethics certification. Fee for service is worse than commission based product flogging.
So when clients save greater than that SOA fee in the first year (and subsequent years) by winding the commission down to zero that is unethical?
At least try to make a reasonable argument.
Probably unethical if you’re trying to justify your fixed fee in comparison to the commission reduction. “I’ve saved you $8,000 in premium, so here’s my fee for $5,000″ – it’s a win win”
How exactly?
A piece of paper does not result in ethical behaviour. Mr Stackpool is just jumping on the wagon of training organisations that get paid to provide meaningless accreditations. The bigger question is what qualifications, or approval from ASIC, does Certainty Advice Group have to decide what is ethical advice?
So another industry body? And how much do we pay Mr stackpool for this privilege