In an open letter to FASEA chief executive Stephen Glenfield, Mr Raftery noted his disappointment that alternative professional year (PY) programs were not incorporated for formal consultation.
“The DBS (Deakin Business School) is greatly concerned that the template that this PY has been predominantly been lifted from an academy developed by a certain organisation who was heavily scrutinised during the recent royal commission,” Mr Raftery said in the letter.
In July, FASEA released its draft guidance on the professional year for new entrants to the financial planning industry.
Mr Raftery suggested it’s “absolutely imperative” that plans for the PY be subsequently submitted, approved and/or regularly audited by regulators such as ASIC and FASEA to ensure the training of new entrants is adequate.
He said that, at a minimum, at least one PY plan from each AFSL needs to be reviewed by either ASIC or FASEA to provide greater confidence that provisional relevant providers (PRPs) will be adequately trained.
“It is a great concern … that it may take years after the creation of these PY plans that inadequate training is detected,” Mr Raftery said.
“Subsection 9(5) raises the question about what penalty or sanction, if any, is imposed with non-compliance of the PY requirements.”
Further, Mr Raftery highlighted alternative PY programs that weren’t considered by FASEA, including:
- Financial planning clinics;
- Series of formal modules plus work experience similar to ones run by accounting bodies CA ANZ and CPA Australia; and
- A choice of either a 12-month informal workplace PY or a quicker six-month formal education pathway.
“While we fully support the increase of professional, education and ethical standards for the financial planning profession, if relevant providers are not being adequately monitored and disciplined then the whole exercise of the recent amendments to the corporations law and subsequent creation of FASEA will be virtually rendered pointless,” Mr Raftery said.
“The DBS strongly recommends that PY training programs (in addition to usual practices by RPs and licensees) are reviewed, approved, monitored and/or audited by the appropriate bodies to ensure that the integrity of the profession remains.”
In November, the FPA banned Mr Raftery from attending its annual congress in Sydney after chief executive Dante De Gori flagged concerns about Mr Raftery’s role as chair of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP), as well as public comments the AIOFP had made about the FPA.
Mr Raftery was appointed AIOFP chair in August following the resignation of Linchpin director Peter Daly.
A lot of people have bagged out AMP here. With good reasons but on this occasions few have actually read their submissions.
Deakins submission comes across as recommending that all advice firms should have the same training plan as does CBA Financial Planning with 2000 licensees. The reality is the number of small businesses usually 1 or 2 adviser firms and therefore do not need or have the same requirements.
Will I put on another “trainee” adviser under Deakin’s plan? No. Not looking forward to submitting a training plan to FASEA and or ASIC. I think I will outsource to overseas. Will large advice firms be able to meet these proposal yes. End result is more people resorting to Banks for advice training and as an entry path.
Adrian here. Our commentary in the submission was against each section of the draft Legislative Instrument. At the very end in the “additional feedback” section did vent our disappointment that the consultation process didn’t allow for alternate PY structures to be considered so that we could have a robust discussion about. We did give an example of a risk only adviser versus a full service adviser but could have easily differentiated between large and small as another example. I hope that you put in a submission & raised this important issue.
bring terry m back. miss ya terry.
An Ode To Terry Mc Master
Terry, You are a Master, McMaster
You gave hope to the hopeless
You gave dreams to those who didn’t dare to dream
You funded those who couldn’t afford $20k pa
You are a Master, McMaster
You said, give me your tired, your poor
Your Huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door
You are a Master, McMaster
the poor and wretched came teeming to your grace
you bestowed your grace on them and gave them manna
you taught them how to spell and outsourced their SoA
You are a Master, McMaster
Then it all went sour, your dealer group blew up
The teeming masses of wretched refuse got angry and refused to pay you
though they owed you but they sued you
oh Terry oh Terry what indignity must you suffer instead
You are a Master, McMaster
Floyd Mayweather famously said before the McGregor fight “the road is long”. Personally I don’t know how, when or if the “profession” will be established. Not any time soon.
A moot point really. Who would be crazy enough to choose financial planning as a career now anyway? For new entrants wanting to make a decent living from providing financial advice, it’s far easier to qualify as an accountant. Then you can give exactly the same advice without having to bother about compliance or paperwork. And make a nice earner on the side doing fund admin for the SMSFs you recommend.
ha thats classic
But true
No RC into accountant as no AFSL needed – a link? Also no education standard. My accountant has not one uni level qual.
most people do not know this, if you look through many of the members of the accounting associations most of them don’t have a degree. they were also grandfathered. that’s why the accountants are making a big fuss about the fasea standards
for example, the CPA program has no AQF rating, it’s like the CFP program “written at a post grad level” i think it’s also run by Deakin
most of the accountants I know are some of the worst business people, and financial managers of their own money
most of them are hopeless people, and they like to just tinker on spreadsheets all day and happy to do that charging people $35 per hour
An accelerated professional year through further education defeats the purpose of ‘professional’ year…the purpose I thought was on the job experience? It would however provide another income stream for Deakin, well done.
No doubt Adrian you would prefer FASEA to subscribe to a program prepared by Deakin University.
You are once again showing your bias and vested interest with the too many hats you now wear with AIOFP, Deakin and your own dealer group.
Adrian here Laurie. Suggest you read my full submission & my previous submissions. I think it’s safe to say that I am the only academic calling for the removal of unnecessary education requirements for advisers. I don’t get paid anything from AIOFP, I don’t have a dealer group and I don’t get paid any volume bonuses at Deakin (yep I do get paid a wage). Would love to see your submissions to FASEA to date.
Boom-tish!
Why would you destroy your reputation and the reputation of Deakin if you are not getting paid for it? The Alliance Of Idiot Financial People has destroyed lives, why trade your good name. Get some money or get out!!
Adrian here. I do not know of one person who has had their life destroyed by AIOFP since I became involved with it at the start of this year. Taking no credit for that whatsoever – mutually exclusive & perhaps good luck. Didn’t see the organisation – nor any of its members – mentioned in the recent Royal Commission. Proud of my name. Proud of the stance I have been making. I could easily hide & deliver potshots anonymously on online forums but what change would I be able to effect? Send me a copy of your submission – would love to see it.
Adrian, great post and I cannot agree more, but it is clear that the only way to provide appropriate advice to individuals who are not high networth is by using robots to do it, I find it amazing that in 2018 the wholesale client certificate still exists and many businesses at the top end of town continue to function on a loophole that needs to be closed.
“To be fair”…AMP has never done anything worth repeating over at least the past 40 years that I’ve observed them. They were always the benchmark for bureaucratic sluggish administration, expensive (gouging) fees and extreme, pushy sales practices. Additionally, they have demonstrated an ability to destroy capital at an alarming rate as well as wreck reputation(s) and in the process have reduced a once proud/well known (albeit sullied by its terrible practices) company to nothing more than a shambles. Why would anyone want anything they produce, sell, say or teach? Better to recruit/reform the Dover team to make a PY program, which would at least have integrity and better understanding of the industry and public’s requirements, even if not an understanding of perceptions… And as to the FPA not allowing dissidents to attend its congress…what would anyone expect from an organisation that has never been prepared to, nor had the ability to stand on its own two feet since its inception. From day one it took fund managers’ money as “sponsorship” and since then has never had any claim to the word “independent”.
No surprise to hear you promote Dover Philip. Like you, Terry McMaster was so consumed by his hatred for AMP that he assumed that as long as he did things differently it would be inherently superior and in clients’ best interest.
Newsflash! Putting your clients into expensive, complicated SMSFs to avoid paying fees to fund managers is not necessarily in clients’ best interest. Recommending an inhouse service to administer those SMSFs is vertical integration and conflicted revenue. And by the way, AMP has eventually caught up on this scam. They do it now too.
I’m thinking of starting a Union. We can then have an “Industry Fund” and be not for protit – take the cash as directors fees. Returns – call it a “capital conservative” fund (better than a Balanced fund) and invest like a shrunken sailor. No conflicts.
Yep been thinking the same except mine will be called the ‘Non-Union Industry Fund’ and will deal with IFA’s and provide them AR status, so they/we too don’t have to worry about all the pesky compliance or worry about disclosures of volume bonuses or even any ASIC scrutiny whatsoever, just like the current union funds rep’s don’t have to…
GUYS! seriously, the best gig is to start an [b]association[/b]. you just sign up people, most are pretty gullible, you sell them courses. line yourself up with a $400k pa job
low risk annuity type income guaranteed
just set up a twitter account and post some tweets about your passions
make something up, like you have 6 passions, the environment, helping small business owners, alleviating hunger and poverty, and eradicating disease (i’ve given you 5 free, think of 1 yourselves) maybe saving sumatran tigers (it’s very low btw)
everyone will buy it, don’t believe me?
check out Dante’s twitter feed (he has 4 passions which are 4F’s)
Future CEO, FRCAAAP (has a nice ring to it doesn’t it)
[b]R[/b]oyal [b]C[/b]hartered [b]A[/b]ssociation of [b]A[/b]ssociated [b]A[/b]dvisory [b]P[/b]rofessionals
is there anything inherently wrong with what’s been proposed, apart from the fact that it is similar to what the AMP proposal looked like? Should FASEA have implemented the AIOFP version instead?
I think the FASEA/AMP program looks okay. You don’t have to do it in one year it can be expanded to 2 or 3.
Well AMP arent exactly going to attract advisers that want to go through a PY to be an adviser there, are they…?
Be fair Adrian. AMP are entitled to something for the contributions made to funding FASEA. FASEA would not want to be seen to be taking fees for no service.
Classic 🙂
This guy wins the internet today!