In its submission to FASEA, the SMSF Association said it understands its current proposal is for licensees to approve 70 per cent of an adviser’s CPD each year.
“From the association’s perspective, such a proposal raises legitimate concerns about the extra compliance burden on licensees, potential conflicts of interests between licensees and CPD providers, and incentives for advisers to ‘licensee shop’ for those with a less stringent CPD policy,” said SMSF Association chief executive John Maroney.
“In addition, the ability for licensees to also be CPD providers and approve their own CPD puts the independence of the system at risk.”
The SMSF Association suggested that CPD that is accredited or delivered by a professional association should automatically be approved by licensees.
It said FASEA should adopt this position on CPD to achieve “consistency, clarity and simplicity”.
“Having professional association’s CPD recognised as approved for FASEA CPD requirements will mean that the work being done by associations to provide accreditation for CPD material won’t have to be reworked by each individual licensee, a process that will inevitably lead to red tape and inconsistencies,” Mr Maroney said.
“It also ensures that an independent body is an integral part of the CPD process, which aims to maintain advisers’ knowledge standards and provide ongoing professional development, instead of relying wholly on licensees that may not have the resources or knowledge to appropriately approve CPD for their advisers.”
However, the SMSF Association said it fully supports FASEA’s decision to reduce annual CPD hours from 50 to 40, saying that 40 hours is “an appropriate standard to ensure that financial advisers are adequately maintaining and extending their professional capabilities, knowledge and skills”.
The Association of Financial Advisers noted in its submission that FASEA’s CPD policy was “unclear” and “absolutely unreasonable”.
“Put bluntly, this is an impossible proposition for over 2,200 advice licensees to implement, at this time of the year with only three weeks left before it is due to commence,” the AFA said.
Why hasn’t Deborah Kent resigned from the FASEA Board? She is a practicing adviser and former president of AFA. Her continued presence on FASEA sends the incorrect message that adviser views are being taken into account. Clearly they are not.
Either Deborah has sold out advisers to take the FASEA cash, or she has been sidelined in decision making and her presence on the FASEA Board is merely token. Time to resign.
I disagree that your solution of having a board with less experience in being a financial planner is a good solution.
If the financial planners on the board were taken notice of, then yes that would be good. But it appears as if the adviser perspective is being ignored. The primary role Deborah Kent and Matthew Rowe are fulfilling on the FASEA Board now is legitimising the bad decisions being made by others. They both should resign to make it clear the current FASEA Board has a strong anti adviser bias which is not aligned with the spirit of the legislation.
It is pointless arguing for change from within anymore. FASEA needs to be disbanded and started again with a new Board and new timeframes. The best thing Rowe & Kent can do for advisers now is to resign and publicly expose the inner workings of the FASEA debacle.
The road to the “profession” is long!! We are twenty years out!
how come lawyers in NSW only have to only do 10 hours of CPD per year than me at 50 hours (proposed) pa pretty much everyone else has to do more :
accountants – 30 to 40 hours pa depending on association
mortgage brokers – 30 hours pa
financial planners – 30 hours minimum
it’s not like they have a higher degree, i have a masters most of them only do a LLB which is a bachelors degree and a graduate diploma of legal practice still lower than a masters
Financial Advisers are just the favourite punch in bag as the Pollies let the big banks get away with murder and always push the blame towards financial advisers
This has some credibility from the association that doesn’t charge through the nose for accreditation. I am not sure how CPD accreditation ever became a revenue stream for them; there is no existing legal requirement for professional association accreditation and I have never seen a great deal of value in the process as they aren’t SME’s on the topics; it’s a read, tic and flick process). If a licensee keeps the records required under the legislative instrument (appropriately qualified provider, learning objectives and outcomes, duration (according to a reputable formula) etc., is can’t see where the issue is. I would certainly like to see an update to professional association policies to reflect that training undertaken by members does not need to be accredited by the same professional association – the current system seems like the professional associations are conflicted in this regard to me!
They’re clearly not independent themselves if the charge for their own CPD and accredit it at the same time!
Unfortunately you could not have an association like the FPA be responsible due to the clear conflicts of interest they have. Especially the issues that were raised in the Royal Commission. Given the member fees they receive from Product Providers like AMP, CBA etc..I can just imagine the CDP requirements.
If SMSFA and FPA want to approve licensees CPD activities then they need to stop creating and approving their own…or at least shut up about being independent! .