In support of the recently passed Better Advice Bill – which sees the FSCP established within ASIC as the single disciplinary body for financial advisers – the corporate regulator will be “responsible for convening individual panels to consider disciplinary matters”.
The Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) executive director Peter Johnston took aim at the government’s panel, which consists of 31 part-time members.
“The Financial Services & Credit Panel [FSCP] announcement by [financial services minister Jane Hume] is confusing to say the least,” Mr Johnston said.
“How can you have a panel supposedly representing the advice industry containing only two politically-damaged hybrid associations and an institutionally dominated one with minimal adviser member content?
“Furthermore, how can you not have an accounting association representative on the panel when a major theme is the tax adviser focus emanating from the Tax Practitioner Board? How can you not have an association with stockbroker representation on the panel?
“The same goes for the highly specialized SMSF practitioners. How can their Association be excluded?”
Mr Johnston has argued that the panel should represent the four major advice cohorts – SMSF, stockbroking, accounting and risk/general advice.
“If politicians want to deal with Institutional matters they should approach the sectors representatives, not advice-focused entities,” he said.
It comes after Mr Johnston proposed the creation of a panel of experienced advisers and ASIC to tackle the intricate compliance regime earlier this week.
According to Mr Johnston, “fair and reasonable adjustments” to relevant legislation are necessary to ease the burden on advisers.
The point should have been Professionals and those that work in a Profession have a “peers” reviewing your work when complaints are made. A peer is your equal or same level. Apart from the token Planner, the people appointed are not my peers and I don’t want the Sales Manager from Bennelong Fund Managers determining how I applied the code, even though he is familiar with market movements, he’s never sat in front of a client. What we’ve ended up with is a failure, it’s just another AFCA by another name, and just another layer of Government. No doubt another 10 pages in a SOA to meet that Government body and another levy to maintain a few jobs for someones mates.
The point is the Government have included past and present AFA/FPA Executives on the panel but not one from other Associations.
Maybe these other associations need to look at whether they really represent broader industry views (I certainly don’t agree with your views on watering down the education standards) and how they advocate to Government.
Maybe, and I’m just spitballing here, they wanted to limit it to professional associations?
“How can you not have an association with stockbroker representation on the panel?” questions Mr Johnston.
I suspect Matt Wigzall and the other highly respected stockbrokers on the FSCP might be a little bemused.