In a LinkedIn post, the Deakin University associate professor lamented that some in financial advice academia do not spend sufficient time with real advisers.
“I love talking to financial planning practitioners at conferences like the FPA Congress,” Dr Raftery wrote. “Without wanting to sound controversial, I really wish the FASEA board members pounded the pavement and received the same exposure of what is working and not working in the profession.”
The comments follow his suggestion that as much as one-third of the financial advice industry may head for the exits once the new education standards are confirmed.
The FASEA board is comprised of a number of academics, including fellow Deakin University adjunct professor Carolyn Bond and Griffith University professor of finance Mark Brimble, alongside regulatory experts like former APRA official Stephen Somogyi and FOS director Catriona Lowe.
Former AFA president Deborah Kent, director of NAB-aligned Integra Financial Services, is the only practising financial adviser appointed to the board.
At a recent Zurich event, the AFA Adviser of the Year and Practice of the Year principal made similar comments as Dr Raftery, arguing that client-facing experience must be taken into account by the new government body in setting appropriate standards.
Dr Raftery is not a member of the FASEA board, but was last week elected to the board of directors of the AIOFP.
FASEA recently outlined its framework for new entrants to the financial advice industry but has not yet released its plan for existing advisers.
Do u think that they havent and wont have contact with the adviser community Adrian? There will be some need for change as part of this whole process. Advisers with pretty basic qualifications will need to do something to improve the educational side. As plenty have pointed out, education isnt the be all and end all when providing advice, but it’s become an essential ticket to the game, whether people like it or not. This whole process wont get any easier if Labor get back into govt at the next election. In fact i expect it will get a whole lot harder as Labor preference their mates in the vertically integrated Union Super Funds & associated advice practices and put the squeeze on the Aligned & IFA market alike. We all make too much money according to Bill Shorten.
There are a number of options for people with good planning experience to get AQF7 or better quals. Only this week I’ve been investigating the options for a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning. Given past education & experience I can likely get exemptions for 2 of the 4 units and have this completed in under 6 months at a reasonable cost. Hardly onerous or overly expensive for existing advisers. You offer such a course at your place Adrian. Many might think it self-serving to promote this as an option but that would be better than bagging the current FASEA board when they havent really been in the gig all that long.
There needs to be a Royal Commission into Politicians and all their conflicts of interest
Can anyone tell me what is a Financial Planner?. The answer appears confusing to the powers that be. After all is it funds management. No. We do not manage funds ourselves as this is outsourced. We do
need to understand functions of this process. Is it tax and accounting – no but we do need to understand at least at a fundamental level what this entails for our clients and their businesses. Is it economics. No but we do need to understand the fundamanetals as to how markets work on a macro economic level at least. Is it Law – no but we do need to understand how a contract works for life insurance and general insurances purposes and from an estate planning viewpoint. Is it psychology. No but understanding the individual and family dynamic helps in discussion. Is it life coaching. No but empowering an individual to be more in time and take command of their financial life is what we do. Along with claims and aged care and pension advice. The outcome of this knowledge not only assists the client but builds a better economy by creating self funded retirees. Government utopia…
Yet a degree encompassing all of the above remains elusive with the current brains trust. We have followed all the instruction and courses bestowed on us thus far to say that as the age newspaer read on its front page, Advisers lack degree. Many are still doing the education thing now be this via the AFA FPA and will continue to over time along with CPD points as needed.
What then are the requirements for a politician?. Come up with ideas to interfere with peoples lives. Interfere with and increase burdens on their lives be they in business or simply trying to make ends meet. Screw up the economy in a multitude of ways be this on trade on simply running the place called Australia and then after the mess is achieved, leave with massive inflated pensions and perks as possible. Note that the idea of honouring a best interest duty to us taxpayers is out the door for the sake of political ideology and self interest or simply looking after their mates.
Folks, if we tried to ignore the best interesst of our clients, had no idea of what we were doing to our clients, messed with their lives and businesses and left with massive rewards, we would be drawn quartered, hung out to dry if not jailed.
Perhaps our foolish politicians need to learn from our industry and get themselves educated for a change about our business instead of saying we need to start again with folks in universities who have never sat in front of a client, let alone understand what they are talking about yet dictating terms to ur industry. We need expeienced folk doing the teaching not foolish acedemics who have never left school, teaching us..
That is why teachers teach- no idea of the real world. if in doubt, ask why teachers fail when running a business or on the board of a sports club-fail-fail and fail. Common sense dictates there must be some level of exemption for life experience-AKA- qualification without a bit of paper. I wonder how Einstein got a start.
Good to see this bloke making reasonable comments for once. Too bad he plugged the fpa
FASEA has just been plain lazy in adopting the FPA’s entry requirements for the specialist CFP course as a standard of entry. It’s a failure. You’ve got 180,000 accountants in Australia and 18,000 financial planners. As a new student wanting to get into the world of finance, what are you going to study? Your choices are a Commerce Degree, a Finance Degree a Business Degree or a specialist Financial Planning Degree. FASEA has just made the pot of future financial planners just that more narrower. The solution would of been any of those broad Degree’s and then a specialist Diploma with exemptions given for specialist financial planning subjects.
I wonder how many of these Academics, Politicians and Consumer Advocates have ever actually seen a financial adviser themselves and seen the crazy amount of compliance and red tape.
Alex / IFA please ask the question to all these technocrats if they have any idea of the real advice process, have they seen an adviser and do they continue to use an adviser?
Totally agree. There needs to be people with practical experience, not just “advising” FASEA, but within the Academic community – i.e. people who are advisers teaching people at Uni, or at least some input from the people who use their skills everyday. Having worked as a CSM for the past 6 years, and just about to finish my Masters, I have encountered many people in these decision making positions who just do not understand what it is like to be in front of a client – they have either never been advisers or have been academics for so long they have forgotten what it is like.