On Friday, ifa aired comments from an FPA member claiming to speak on behalf of a cohort of fellow members that took aim at the association for its close personal ties to the FASEA board and the role played by its FPEC subsidiary.
In response, an FPA spokesperson has issued a statement of response, seeking to clarify a number of issues raised in the article.
“With regard to the Financial Planning Education Council (FPEC), the FPA partnered with the higher education sector in 2011 to set up FPEC with the aim of establishing a curriculum for financial planning degrees, and a process to approve university courses against this curriculum,” the statement said.
“Through its charter, FPEC has the authority to approve individual programs that satisfy requirements for admittance to the FPA membership category Financial Planner AFP, and for entry into the CFP certification program.
“FASEA announced in October 2017 that it would adopt the FPEC framework and approved list of degree courses for new entrants from 2019. There has been no change to the ownership or operation of FPEC following the announcement in October, and FPEC continues to operate in accordance with its charter and accreditation framework.”
More broadly, the statement indicated that the FPA will be embarking on a consultation process with members ahead of providing guidance to FASEA.
“In December 2017, FASEA released its proposed guidance for consultation on education requirements for existing financial planners,” it said.
“Consultation is open until 29 June 2018 and the FPA will be participating in this process, which will include consulting with our members and other stakeholders.
“The FPA intends to respond in support of members and financial planners to ensure that the requirements are fair, reasonable and practical.
“We will be advocating on behalf of financial planners who have proactively completed studies that exceed the minimum RG146 requirements, and this aligns with the proposal in our 100-point plan.”
The statement also reminded existing advisers that they have until 1 January 2024 to transition to the new standards regime.
The FPA no longer has a mandate to represent it’s members. It considers itself a professional body and it’s mandate is to protect the interests of…..OUR CLIENTS!!! How can they be protecting my clients if I am forced to retire because the FPA no longer considers my university commerce degree and my Chartered Accountant status and my DFP (8 units) all irrelvant because I achieved them more than 10 years ago. In the meantime I have been running my own AFSL licence and advising my clients for over 25 years. I am not considered by the FPA to be professional. I am nearing age 60. I’m not about to study what I already know just to satisfy those who have no idea about providing advice. I keep up to date with ongoing training. This is a disgrace. What are our FPA Directors doing while this crap is going down????
Is there a contact number or similar for the FPEC for us lowly subjects that will have to abide by whatever they push out? I haven’t been able to find anything other than an FPEC grant number
OK, enough is enough.
1. Mr Mark Brimble (Griffith University) as a FASEA board member and FPEC chair would not qualify under the proposed framework [Creates the problem]
2. Mr Brimble’s substantive appointment is at Professor at Griffith University who is a provider of education to meeting the proposed framework [Solves the problem]
3. Mr Brimble is co-authoring a textbook that is assigned to subjects within the proposed framework and will personally receive royalties [Profits from the problem].
That seems like a conflict of interest.
Why is the conflicts of interest policy not enforced at Griffith University? I thought the idea of “raising standards” was to, well, “raise” them? Keep reporting on this IFA at the moment it seems like Aleks Vickovich is one of the few in the financial press that is shining a light on this important (and heavily conflicted) issue.
If you get paid based on number of students enrolled in your course and your employer also gets funding on number of students enrolled isn’t that also a conflict. Write a text book and make it compulsory course buying is most likely the next move. We got rid of volume based payments. The correct thing would of been to have a representative from the education sector that 1) did not have the above conflict i.e about 10,000 other people 2) representatives from the private sector as well.
Agree. Why isn’t a spotlight being placed on Griffith Business School’s Executive Dean, David Grant? Why are university policies regarding conflicts of interest not being followed? Why would a Professor, such as Mr Brimble, want to damage the sector’s reputation in this way? Is IFA Magazine going to ask the University for a formal comment? The Dean? The Professor? The silence is deafening!
If everyone resigned from the FPA – they would have no one to represent and therefore their conflicted interests would have nothing to gain from cynically hijacking the Education / Professional Standards debate. Apart from, of course, what the FPA refer to as their “other stakeholders”… meaning the Institutions and certain Education suppliers and a few individuals trying to ride their way to riches on this issue.
In addition to the conflicts of interest noted in the article, why does the Chair of the Financial Planning Education Council only have post-graduate qualifications in the field of accounting and not financial planning? If we’re going to “raise the standard of financial planning education [p.1, FPEC Charter]”, we need to appoint independent members to provide the profession – and those they serve (our clients) – with governance over education standards that is beyond reproach. The fact that those with these conflicts cannot see this speaks volumes to where we are as an industry. Bring on the Royal Commission, with the current behaviours of those who should know better – the gatekeepers of education standards in financial planning – as Exhibit A.
I’m a Chartered Accountant and former holder of the CFP designation by virtue of my membership of the FPA. I have done all the necessary units of the DFP and been in practice for 18 years.
After becoming disillusioned with the Institutional basis and covert control of the FPA – I resigned 5 years ago. Now, the FPA seeks to “deal itself in” and exert overt control over the future of many highly qualified Financial Planners by setting up relationships with “educators” and influencing the accepted standards to be applied to FPs.
The FPA have a poor track record of representing non-aligned FPS and continue to run “interference” on behalf of its sectional interests.
It gets better and better. So the FPA partnered with FPEC which has created a situation where 90% of its members don’t qualify under the existing qualification regime whilst making a fortune and continuing to charge for qualifications that are now worthless. And of course the FASEA relationships and the FPA will make another fortune out of this over the next 4 years. They wonder why 75% of advisers plan to leave the industry?? What a joke.
So the FPA’s input to FASEA’s consultation process will be repeating the same old 100 point plan that FASEA has already ignored? What’s the point of that?
The FPA needs to forget about FASEA’s “process” and “timetable”. They need to be aggressively lobbying the minister and the press that FASEA has exceeded their mandate. Forcing planners who already have a degree to get another one is not the purpose of the government’s legislation and will make it impossible for Australian consumers to get affordable advice. It also sets a ridiculous precedent for every other profession in Australia. FASEA seems to have been hijacked by the conflicted academics on its board. They need to be brought back in line. Meekly following FASEA’s “consultation” process means accepting their rules and agenda. That is not acceptable FPA.
For those of us who have a suitable degree now, as an example to do the RMIT financial planning degree will cost just under $33,000 for the 3 year course. So I expect that the ‘special degree course’ the FASEA come up with will no doubt easily be this amount or more, as one always has to follow where the money goes, particularly in a monopoly situation. What a great waste of time and money for the financial planner and planning industry and a great boom to the FASEA. Who says there is no conflict.
It is also arguable that this $33,000 will not be tax deductible as it will likely be considered an initial degree by the tax office – so that makes it even more expensive. As if it wasn’t hard enough to make a living from financial planning as it is without this additional cost in money but more importantly in time.
Likely not to be tax deductible as most undergraduate degree are Commonwealth Support Places (CSP) in which the cost of the course has already been subsidised by the Government and therefore you are unable to claim a tax deduction for the course fees – other study costs I would think would still be tax deductible. I am currently completing a Graduate Diploma of Financial Planning and as it is not a CSP I am able to claim the course fees as study expenses.
Bit of a worry that you don’t know how tax deductions work. You need a sufficient nexus between the expense and the income. If your study is directly related to your current job then the dollars you spend on it (not the dollars you FEE-HELP) are deductible. Hope your Grad Dip includes a tax subject!
Why shouldn’t it be tax deductible? My understanding is that if one is completing a course that is relevant to one’s current occupation, then the costs associated will be tax deductible. Anton Boreckyi MFP CFP DFP
I have both a Bachelor of Commerce (Financial Planning and Economics) and Masters of Accounting but as it reads at the moment, given my degrees were completed some time ago, I will have to complete another? This is beyond a joke.
Mate, you have just summed up the utter joke of this. How is it that someone with your qualifications would not meet the requirements and should be expected to complete another degree? I am in a similar situation however I will be 60 in six years time and I am just planning on retiring a few years earlier than I would have hoped. The individuals bringing this in are not as qualified as you but are just doing this to make a profit.
I can still be an Accountant if I study a Bachelor of Economics, a Bachelor of Commerce, a Bachelor of Finance, a Bachelor of Business. I may have to do some bridging courses in order to enrol into the content specific CPA program however I don’t need to be a CPA to be or get a job as an accountant. Hence the accountancy profession have all the above degrees and thus a very broad base in which to find young accountants who will buy there businesses or enter into the profession.
Seems like we want to reduce the actual numbers of planners as FASEA has set the bar as a Bachelors degree in Financial planning. (again there is another conflict here based on who is sitting on the FASEA board and those who are out teaching this).
The adoption of the FPA course list used as the entry requirements into the CFP course is deeply flawed.
How pathetic. No consultation is required to see how grossly unfair it is to make financial planners repeat their degrees. They should be shouting from the rooftops. FASEA did not have a mandate to do this. No other profession would stand for such nonsense. I’m starting to come around to the view that there is another agenda at play here from the FPA. They are clearly more interested in their own bottom line rather than the interests of their members and consumers.
I am not aware of recent income from training… in the past, a significant amount was raised. IF this new regime allows for high FPA income then there is your conflict of interest… almost unethical when they hold the adviser to ransom by “representation” to the training board. Far better to divest themselves of one – either training goes or advisers go. They can decide which is more profitable and thus remove any doubt as to what their agenda really is.
According to the 2017 annual report Over 1/3 of FPA income comes from enrollments in the CFP course. Why would you enroll or continue your study in the CFP course when it is now utterly useless, is a course from a private body and won’t count towards AQF level requirements of FASEA. Even it’s authors don’t recognise it for prior recognition of learning into their degree. Quite frankly the FPA are screwed financially.
The FPA needs to get started on their submission for existing members by contacting each member and ascertaining their current education and completed CPD if that is the basis of a submission. For those needing a degree, 2024 is not enough time considering current work obligations and family ect. For those with degree/masters qualifications and other qualifications which on paper are now redundant- you, the FPA need to make a statement NOW as to your future actions – there is way too much confusion among members and as one of the representative bodies, your silence is negligent.
I notice that the degree in Financial Planning I completed in 2015 at RMIT appears not to be good enough for the list? Seriously
Utter rubbish form the FPA. They do have a vested interest and are not helping anyone at all. We all know about the 2024 deadline. We need to be advised about grandfathering mechanisms and not told to retrain completely at a cost of a great many thousands of dollars.
It is really time that all involved in this exercise started to come clean and provide all information immediately and we should not have to wait another 6 to 12 months to find out what may or may be not necessary for retraining.
This situation is going to be a complete mess for all those in the financial planning industry.
Where will “Robo”, be in 2024?? Perhaps the only education required by then will be a masters degree in data entry! It is most likely the adviser circa 2024, will be a great relationship manager with a fully automated back office.