In a statement issued yesterday, Treasurer Scott Morrison weighed in on the first two days of the royal commission’s financial advice hearings and the finding that Australia’s largest financial advice provider, AMP, has provided at least 20 false and misleading statements to ASIC in various breach reports over seven years.
“What has occurred here and what has been admitted to in the Royal Commission by AMP is deeply disturbing,” Mr Morrison said.
“They have said that they basically charged people for services they didn’t provide and they have admitted to statements that were misleading to ASIC and to their own customers, and this is deeply distressing.
“This type of behaviour can attract penalties which include gaol time. That’s how serious these things are.”
Notwithstanding the evidence, the Treasurer also said the corporate regulator has his confidence and is well-equipped to monitor the financial services industry and enforce the existing legislation.
“We will allow the Commission to continue to do their work and ASIC will get on with their job of dealing with what are very serious admissions by AMP at the Royal Commission and they’ll get on with that job immediately as they have already been doing,” he said.
Mr Morrison was one of a number of senior Coalition MPs who, until recently, opposed the royal commission.
ifa’s rolling coverage of the royal commission financial advice hearings continues live today: https://www.ifa.com.au/strategy/25404-royal-commission-financial-advice-hearings-live-blog
As long as they also go prosecuting (& equally persecuting) the ISA funds and their executives along with these other organisations – or can we expect them to get a carve out on that accountability as well?
This is so typical, the planner is thrown under the bus, told we have to increase our education because there are a few unethical planners in the industry, sounds to me some executives need a dose of ethical training, perhaps their qualification could also be classed as invalid
Every single member of the FPA needs to head their head in shame. YOU are just as bad. How could any member of the FPA take this? As a member I’d like to offer apologies to the public on behalf of these fellow members. The FPA was against the RC. Just remember these bodies are members of the FPA . AMP, & CFP pay membership fees to ” work proactively to shape the future of financial advice”. FASEA closes in 2 months and these are the key business partners that the FPA chooses to have as members. We’ll await to here from them. Just how effective will the FPA be in working for it’s members with FASEA. Seems like they work for Comm Financial Planning.
So far we have heard lots of horror stories in Financial Planning, none of which have been perpetrated by Financial Planners. In Fact, it seems the organisations who licence the vast majority of planners are the ones who are systematically doing wrong, while handing planners and the planning profession out to dry to hide their own sins. I wonder if anyone in the industry is surprised by this. What is sad is the collateral damage that will be done to many good honest individuals working as planners and trying to do the best by their clients despite the big organisations influence.
Not surprised at all and lucky all these organisations are part of the FSC who consult the government on how the industry should work haha. What a genuine joke. It gets difficult to stay in this industry sometimes.
A long time ago I departed a major Australian bank and the farce they called ‘financial planning’… it was blatantly obvious it was about sales to in house product, nothing more, nothing less. Sell sell sell and you were a hero. No sales for a week or two, but provide ongoing review and service in an effort to maintain a client relationship and you were a zero, keep it up and your job was at risk.
Large (bank/AMP aligned) dealer groups are all in the same boat. In house product, underpinned by a restrictive APL and /or a shady BOLR offering based on in house product, Theyre all the same.
AMP’s ‘review’ of their BOLR last year and the banks commencing the process of removing themselves from insurance and/or funds management smacks of nothing more than trying to cover their ass before it gets smacked by ASIC. Bring it on, long overdue.
The banking commission highlights the damage the banks have done to the financial planning industry since they acquired wealth management in the early 2000s. Rather than the rhetoric being ‘How do we make financial planning a profession” the rhetoric should be “How do we get the banks out of financial planning”. The banks have proven they have had no clue about financial planning and have treated the whole profession and their customers with contempt through sheer greed and arrogance. The bank executives need to be held to account not the financial planning industry that they entered and put their finger up to.
Scott is measured and articulate.
I’m getting the feeling the government is taking things off the table, that may have become the oppositions platform for the next election.
Scott’s changes to superannuation, may not have been well received by the financial services industry, however they are measured, articulate, and let me say fair.
The oppositions platform on dividend imputation is little more than dribble.