According to a statement this morning, Catherine Walter has been appointed chair of the board for a four-year period.
Ms Walter is the director of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Payments Systems Board and a director at Australian Foundation Investment Company.
Other directors include:
• Deborah Kent, former AFA president
• Carolyn Bond, director of the Legal Services Board (Victoria), Debt Repayment Service Board and Jan Pentland Foundation
• Mark Brimble, professor (finance) in the Griffith Business School at the Griffith University
• Matthew Rowe, CEO and managing director of Countplus Limited
• Catriona Lowe, director of the Financial Ombudsman Service, Legal Practice Liability Committee (Vic) and Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and a co-chair of the ACCC Consumer Consultative Committee.
• Simon Longstaff, executive director of the Ethics Centre
• Steve Somogyi, director at Guild Group and UniSuper, and an adviser at Monash University, Victoria University and University of Melbourne
• Michael O’Neill, former CEO of National Seniors Australia and a former CEO of the Australian Gold Council and AgForce Queensland.
The role of the chair is to maintain board cohesion and unite directors with different experiences and backgrounds to achieve the common purpose of professionalising the financial advice sector, the statement said.
The FASEA will be responsible for governing the conduct of professionals in the financial advice sector, by setting mandatory educational and training requirements, developing and setting an industry exam, and creating a Code of Ethics that all advisers will be required to adhere to.
The new requirements will commence on 1 January 2019. From this date, new advisers will be required to hold a relevant degree before they are eligible to commence a supervision year and to sit the exam. Existing advisers will have two years, until 1 January 2021, to pass the exam and five years, until 1 January 2024, to reach a standard equivalent to a degree. The Code of Ethics will commence on 1 January 2020, with all advisers being required to adhere to the code from that day forward.
Can anyone please enlighten me and tell me if there is a risk practitioner anywhere among that lot? I’ve been screaming for over a decade for a separate specialised licence for risk advisers and the powers that be (the biased ones) have ignores the concept. Is there a risky in this new ‘board’ to further the cause of the risk writer? Please explain Pauline??!!
From what the FPA are putting out, is that exam questions for example will be more based on compliance questions, e.g AML requirements for example something all advisers regardless of specialty needs to deal with.. You’ll have 3 years to do the exam and you can fail as many times as you want to. Education courses are just based on AQF standards where anything is that is AQF 8 ranked is equivalent to a degree. The FPA are saying it is likely that a 100 point check system will be put in place, where education and CPD are weighted. Sounds like for example A degree in financial planning might be worth 100 points, whilst 10 years of CPD could be worth say 60, a diploma worth 60, another degree worth so much and a one day risk course worth say 5 by way of an example. That’s what the board will determine. Hence no need for an aged care rep or a risky or a stockbroker rep. Seems like this may not be the sell your business worry that many might be thinking. Hope that helps BH
Many thanks Jason. It may not look like it sometimes but I truly do try to stay as positive as I can in the face of what seems to be nonsense by many parties. As the old saying goes “I will (do my best to) expect the best however I’ll prepare for the worst”. All I want to do is keep my clients safe, protected and informed, as I have successfully for more than 30 years. Unfortunately however, it seems road block after road block is erected by more and more self-interested and self-serving entities. Thanks again Jason for caring enough to respond so fully.
AQF 7 is a bachelor degree, AQF 8 is post-grad
uuuuuummmm the ASIC was crying poor because the govt didn’t give enough money to them,,, now they have given more money…… another organisation pops up that is paid by the government.Gee or these organisations to fight crime in Gotham city…..at this rate a royal commission is looking cheaper by the day and probably more effective because clearly the government to date doesn’t think Australia has enough caped crusaders to battle the white collar crime.
ASIC isnt the one that set up the Standards Board. This was the brainchild of the govt. Where in this statement does it say that it was the work of ASIC?
Where in my statement did I say the board was set up by the ASIC?No doubt Jimmy your one of those planners who expect a client to read a 80 page document and interpret exactly the way a professional is meant to interpret that document yet you cannot read one paragraph and comprehend that correctly.
I may have misinterpreted your comment Anon but i do know my grammar and i know the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you’re shit.
As to 80 page SOA’s I wouldnt know what that was because I don’t produce advice documents of this size, knowing that i wouldnt bother reading something so verbose, i wouldnt inflict it in a client. I do give my clients an SOA because that is the law, but it’s as concise as i can make it, but the real advice presentation is given via a handful of slides that captures where the client is, where they what to go and the strategies we will implement to make it happen. This is much more informative, relevant and useful for 90% of clients. For the other 10% (the engineers, teachers and coppers) who simply need to know everything, they can read thru the full SOA, appendices, PDS’s and any additional information they want.
I wasn’t referring to a 80 page SOA I said document.You have just confirmed exactly what I am saying you cannot read one paragraph and comprehend that correctly.I am not accusing you of any ill behavior in you line of work however one can see on 2 occasions here you have misread my paragraph yet a client is expected to understand and interpret a document exactly the way a professional would expect them to..
Thank god we have at least two industry ‘practitioners’ in Matthew Rowe and Deborah Kent on the Board. At least they will be able draw from the expertise and representation of both the FPA and AFA respectively on the potential impact of any of the Board’s proposals on advisers. Whilst the rest of the Board may have ‘impressive’ credentials, they seem somewhat removed from the industry and they will no doubt be on their own learning curves. As for the elephant in the room, some of the industry’s largest non-university educators with far more students and experience in financial planning education seem to have been ignored in favour of ‘sandstone’ university representation.
Are you even an adviser Jason Badcoe? Not on the FAR. Is griffith uni a sandstone uni? No idea, but i do know that advisers will be well served by having Mark Brimble on this Board.
at least it will be safe to enrol in a Graduate Diploma of Financial Planning from Griffith University with Mark Brimble as the author, writer and lecturer.
yes the course will be auto accredited as meeting the regulatory requirements of PScrap426
Jimmy – I in no way intended to disrespect Mark Brimble – I said they all have impressive credentials and I’m sure Mark is well-placed to advise on a relevant bachelor degree. However, the professional standards are more than this alone. All I was suggesting is that having both Matthew Rowe & Deborah Kent on the Board who both held senior positions in the FPA & AFA respectively and who are both successful advisers are best placed to represent advisers interests from a practical implementation perspective with an overlay of a record of commitment to higher professional standards.
Didnt intend to disrespect? What about the ‘elephant in the room’ comment, the ‘largest non-university educators, sandstone uni representation’ comment? What does that mean,if not meant to disrespect? Who would you put on there? Which non-uni educator would you have liked to have seen? If people think that the Board would have been full of current practitioners, then you have rocks in your head.
Mark Brimble Griffith University? He’s not just any academic from a University, He’s a guy whose remuneration and career success is directly linked to the success of a Bachelor of Financial Planning course at Griffith Uni. Last I looked there were dozens of Government funded Universities offering finance course, that surly put a candidate forward. Isn’t that a clear conflict of interest?.How could a person that dictates what education standards should be, or what weighting your CPD points or Diploma will be, also be in the job of selling Degrees. Will a special Graduate Certificate of Financial Advice be created to serve as a bridging course, no doubt written by Mark and also a nice text book selling for $150 be required also, aimed at potentially 18,000 financial planners. Hence my concern about the lack of industry representation.
Do you even know the guy? Do you have the courage of your convictions to put your name to your posts? That would be NO to both questions. I know Mark and he’s a seriously smart bloke. He’s been involved with the FPA’s Education Council as Chairman and he truly has the interests of practitioners at heart. He has been saying for a while that many practitioners were focused on the wrong part of these changes and that the biggest issue was who got onto this board. I’m glad that he has been selected as i think that its a real positive. Just imagine if we’d had someone like David Whiteman from Union Super on there….
James. I’m not slandering this guy personally. No I don’t know the guy. I’m sure he is a nice guy and given he’s got a degree I’m sure he’s a smart bloke, he might be really nice, he might be involved in a body of Universities trying to have links with an industry association, he might be smart… but it’s still a conflict of interest. i.e defined as “a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity” I don’t know the guy, I’ve never met the guy, I have no angst or reason to not like the guy. It’s just it’s a clear conflict of interest. He’s selling Financial Planning Degree’s and he’s on a board that is deciding what standards and what degree’s are applicable. That’s a conflict isn’t? There are a lot of others we could of chosen from Academia.
Its a conflict that few are concerned about… the majority of advisers support mandatory degree qualifications for new advisers – if only there were more degrees focused specifically on financial planning.
that’s the general problem with financial planners. We don’t seem to care. Really haven’t read many comments on this site that are interested in making planning a profession. We only gripe and whinge after the fact. Reality (see comment below) makes the best point- “if this industry got its act together and evolved previously, we wouldn’t be in this situation” This industry is mainly driving by self serving parties interested only in their 4 times BOLR agreements etc. I’m raising a question about the validity of the selection of the participant.. We should not leave ourselves open for further attack from outside sources such as the media just because James/Jimmy believes he’s a nice guy, a good bloke, and he’s smart, so no conflict of interest exists.
Yes, there are comments on this site about making a profession. I have raised a query each and every time there is an announcement of an Exec appointment with no FP quals – in the hope this issue is at least noticed at first and maybe acted upon in time.
get over yourself anonymous, almost everything in life presents some form of conflict of interest. There would have been, rightfully, more criticism from outside sources if the panel was stacked full of practising advisers. If i google financial planning degrees/masters there are numerous options that are available to advisers who need to upskill, one of the dozens of courses is offered by Griffith Uni. I think it’s appropriate that there is an educator on the panel, and one that has significant experience in financial planning. It’s a Capt Obvious really. So if there is an educator on board with appropriate skills and experience, then it’s pretty likely that they will be involved in an institution somewhere offering a relevant course. With 15,000+ advisers in this country, with many needing to upskill themselves to meet the new educational requirements, not all can be accomodated at Griffith U, it is unlikely to be the sole provider approved. Or maybe that’s his real goal, how Machiavellian of him….
I don’t really see a way that moving forward where a financial planning degree doesn’t become the minimum standard (as it should). At this stage the Grad cert, grad diploma and Masters are available and all very relevant but there needs to be an entry level degree developed for those looking to enter the industry without the experience/ADFP to get into those qualifications.
The fossils will continue to complain but if this industry got its act together and evolved previously, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Just suck it up and get the work done. If you are that great at your job you’ll breeze through the study and I’m sure there will be a cop out bridging course developed…. Just like commissions being grandfathered etc.
take it back – it looks like Ms Kent is a practitioner – well done
Oh yay, yet another body that we’re meant to accountable to, individually and as an industry. Like ASIC, FOS, TPB, ATO, AFSL, FPA, AFA and all the miscellaneous others aren’t enough combined with the corporations act, fiduciary obligations, SIS, FOFA,LIFG and the myriad others rules, laws and legislation that we have to abide by. These clowns will feel it incumbent that they have to come up with some more inane rules that we’re all meant to bow and scrape to, but worse still, have yet more bureaucratic meaningless time consuming paperwork that we’ll be expected to complete at least yearly or else lose our ‘right’ to practice. Love for anyone out there to name one other industry or profession that is so heavily over regulated? Anyone?
no one is this heavily regulated because they are so much better organised and work together
Nice to see the ivory tower being fully engaged – oh wait not a client facing business owner – that will certainly be representative
and the number of actual face to face financial planners represented on this board is…wait for it…Nil. Epic fail. Yep that dealer group model is really working out for us isn’t it.
A bit unfair Jason. Matthew Rowe is CFP and CPA and was an Adviser for 15 years.
the key word being “was”” a planner. Now full time board hopper. So it appears we have one planner being Debra Kent on this board.
A positive step forward.
Apply same education and ethic requirements to all employed in Finance, Banking, Insurance, Publicly Listed Corporations, Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority and Bureaucrats who set these standards with same penalties to apply answerable to ASIC. It will be interesting to see who is still employed.
Now hopefully I will get some direction (sooner rather than later) on what my next education step should be.