Tai Thanh Nguyen received the ban after an investigation found he had dishonestly backdated advice documents to clients, incorrectly witnessed binding nominations of beneficiary forms, created or modified client files produced to ASIC and attempted to induce a client to mislead the regulator.
ASIC commissioner Danielle Press said that financial advisers had an important responsibility to their clients and ASIC would continue to take actions against those who breached those responsibilities.
“Financial advisers have a critical role to play in helping consumers make confident and informed decisions about financial products,” Ms Press said.
“They have an obligation to act in the best interests of their clients when providing advice and must adhere to ethical standards and conduct themselves with honesty and professionalism. ASIC will continue to take action where the conduct of financial advisers is inadequate.”
ASIC also found that Mr Nguyen had further engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by allowing the incorrectly witnessed binding nomination forms to be submitted to insurers on behalf of two of his clients.
He had also failed to comply with a financial services law by implementing financial advice to four clients before they were provided with a statement of advice.
ASIC found that Mr Nguyen is likely to contravene a financial services law for reasons including that he had engaged in dishonest conduct while he was an authorised representative of GWM Adviser Services Limited, and continued to do so while he was an authorised representative of InterPrac Financial Planning. Moreover, he acted dishonestly in the course of responding to an ASIC statutory notice.
Mr Nguyen’s banning will be recorded on ASIC’s publicly available Financial Advisers Register, which consumers can access to check the qualifications and credentials of financial advisers.
Does anyone have a link to the report? Wonder what type of advice without an SoA was given, likely that many advisers out there have done this at least once.
so this guy is now going to be forever tarnished and unemployable and the taxpayer has to pick up the tab for him
did anyone lose money or get ruined because of his advice?
is this a good result from the Australian public’s perspective? since we are also using community expectations as a standard ?
how come the big institutions still carry on by paying a fine we had to have a royal commission before anyone lost their job
Never really understand how ASIC can conclude that a person is likely to break the law in the future. If they could really predict future law breaking, how come people break the law? Seems little more than ASIC getting ‘a vibe.’ Courts don’t give themselves that power.
A couple of years back a Sydney based planner was taking money from his clients’ SMSF accounts, using it to run his own business and spending up big on his lifestyle.
He got banned for 2 years. This bloke missed a few SoA’s and like many advisers got a BDN witnessed back at the office and gets life!
wait… what… Mr. Nguyen was a CFP?! How does FPA consider the CFP designation to be considered the pinnacle for financial advisers when this happens time and time again. You cannot teach ethics.
Not only was he a CFP, but wait for it….He was also a CPA and had a bachelors degree in accounting.
Not qualified enough. He should have done FASEA’s courses then I’m sure there would be no problems.
Spot on. You can do as many degrees and accreditation’s as you like and none of these pointless fee earning courses will ever solve bad behaviour, crooks or lack of morals.
Just more rock solid evidence the whole education is everything rort is just that, A BIG FAT FEE EARNING RORT. A scam given credibility by clueless politicians.
I’d like to believe that people who spend $20,000 doing a Bachelor of Commerce and further specialized degrees and coursework would be less likely to embark on this behavior. However I may still be living in dreamland.
i.e If I spent $100,000 on a Tesla would I allow a drunk passenger to have a spin behind the wheel?
One final point is this guy only ripped off a few people….did some dodgy witnesses of binding death nominations. CBA have ripped off and destroyed the lives of hundreds and caused an UN-quantifiable amount of damage to the broader advice community, my business and yet they get Zip.
It doesn’t say any clients were ripped off. They were provided with Advice without a SOA and some incorrectly witnessed beneficiary forms. Potentially there could be client losses, but it seems like adhering to compliance was this guys downfall.
Small fish. If ASIC want to impress me they can start with a few of the big players. Sadly it does not look like they have the intestinal fortitude.
Hell, Interprac had a dodgy adviser and did not check references! Can’t believe it.
Keeping weeding out the bad eggs!