Speaking at the AFA national conference on the Gold Coast on Friday, Ms O’Dwyer listed the creation of the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority as one of a number of initiatives the government believes will help raise consumer confidence in the financial advice profession.
Ms O’Dwyer also acknowledged concerns that advisers still lack full clarity over the specific educational and professional standards requirements they will need to comply with under the regime.
“FASEA is progressing well,” Ms O’Dwyer said. “The board has been meeting frequently and wants to provide certainty. It understands there needs to be time to comply.”
More broadly she said the new body, which will be headed by former FPA staffer Deen Sanders, is part of the government’s efforts to help the financial advice industry be viewed as a “true profession”.
The minister’s comments follow calls from the AFA for greater clarity on the adviser education standards.
“What we’d like to see is certainty; we have such momentum behind us and advisers, licensees, manufacturers are actually already starting this higher education wave,” the AFA’s Nick Hakes told ifa. “What we can’t do is stall that momentum.”
This woman is an unmitigated disaster and full embarrassment to Australia. Whether she is a clueless toothless tiger OR whether she has simply been lied to by the FSC, IT IS HER JOB to know the facts before sanctioning any move to legislation. She quite clearly does NOT have the correct facts in front of her. We’ll never really know if she even [b]wanted [/b][i][/i]the true facts due to her overlords (life companies) decreeing their wants. She could only have the ‘facts’ the entities have wanted her to see for their own benefit. An afternoon with a clued-in adviser panel would open her eyes to a large extent. Mine and buckleys of her agreeing to that though. Big end of town [i](life companies)[/i] has what it wants; the groundwork for advisers to be OUT of the industry via commissions cut and chargeback periods lengthened. The terms [b]disgraceful [/b]and [b]abuse of power [/b]down’t begin to describe it!
agree – O’Dwyer has no idea what she’s talking about and the Associations have been toothless tigers at best. the good in all this mess now will no doubt go down with this stinking rat infested ship
may I humbly ask all self respecting advisers to cancel their memberships to their respective bodies AFA or FPA. this is the strongest message we can send. when their membership numbers 0 maybe they will take notice
every large business craves uncertainty. it is no different for us. we need to know implications before we decide to invest our time and money
We also now have the issue with many advisers maintaining their association membership in order to renew their registration with the TPB as opposed to completing additional study
“Its progressing well”! Nobody knows the requirements and most risk focused advisers are planning their early exits due to this and the LIF. That’s not a good result. And did anyone from the AFA tackle O’Dwyer on how she was either duped by the FSC on churn or complacent in the deceit to bring in the LIF that will be disastrous for customers and risk focused advisers?
If not snubbing O’Dwyer instead of inviting her to speak would have been a better message by the AFA.