CPA held an AGM in Melbourne Tuesday night, attended by more than 300 members of the association following a conflict-ridden 12 months that has seen the ousting of the former CEO, chair and an independent inquiry into governance standards and performance.
All four of the board-proposed special resolutions were passed at the AGM, while 10 non-sanctioned member resolutions failed to get the requisite numbers.
The outcome indicates a decisive win for the association’s board and president Peter Wilson, and a setback for rebel members advocating reform of the association.
But despite the clean sweep, dissatisfaction continues to bubble beneath among the membership, including on the topic of CPA Australia Advice.
One member, Peter Polgar, was vocal in opposition, demanding that the board take the decision to “shut it down”.
In response, Mr Wilson said the board would not be making any decision about the future of the licensee – which was launched by former CPA CEO Alex Malley and ASIC chair Greg Medcraft in 2014 – until the “middle of the year”, once it had considered the findings of an ongoing PwC review.
The review of CPA conducted by former auditor-general Ian McPhee recommended that the association “reconsider” the advice business project in light of lacklustre performance and concerns around conflicts of interest.
Mr Polgar also demanded that the CPA board disclose the geographic breakdown of the crucial proxy votes, following accusations that Singapore-based members were ordered to support the board’s position rather than the rebel resolutions, as reported by ifa sister title Accountants Daily.
The successful passage of board-supported resolutions will see a raft of changes including the abolition of the association’s representative council, limit on the number of board directors and a remuneration cap for directors.
[quote=Jape]The national exam in 2020 will sort them, and many others, out well before education requirements of 2024.[/quote][quote=Jape]The national exam in 2020 will sort them, and many others, out well before education requirements of 2024.[/quote]
From what I hear the exam is going to be simple and ethics focused. Even the least educated from a technical standpoint will probably pass making the whole idea redundant. Needs to be in a classroom, technical financial planning and closed book so advisers need to actually justify their ability.
yes, the exam has to be [u]reasonably difficult to pass[/u]. we need to bring forward the degree requirement to align with the 2020 exam date.
we need the exam to be difficult so that it improves the public perception for our profession
as it stands i am masters degree qualified yet am held in equal regard as a used car sales person
No, it won’t just be ethics. Likely to be similar to RG146 but longer including Insurance, Investments and Super knowledge areas. Good luck!
You can’t bring forward the degree requirement date as it doesn’t leave enough time to complete the requirement especially when the education requirement still hasn’t been set in absolute stone.
I recruit financial planners for a living. It is a difficult job. The outcome of 40 hours per week is one new recruit per month. CPA Advice has 37 planners. The recruitment manager there has done a good job. The manager in charge of expense control, maybe not.
A classic case of getting ahead of yourselves. Too much drinking their own bath water by Alex and friends
With Royal Commission on financial planning, I think that there may be a turnaround soon for CPA Australia Advice which has the capacity for compliance and training its members and all members have an accounting degree to back it up anyway. No like some members of FPA and AFA dont even have a degree not to mention a related degree. CEO of FPA did mention that FPA may not have the capacity to be an accredited compliance scheme holder due to a lack of resources.
accounting degree is not relevant to financial planning. none of the accounting professional programs to date -with cpa australia only introducing financial planning electives recently – included a component of financial planning
many accountants -possibly thousands – have been grandfathered without a degree also so they won’t qualify under FASEA’s new standards
thank you
papa
Rubbish. I lecture in Financial Planning within such an Accounting degree. You are talking s%$$t. An Accounting degree is incredibly relevant. It’s the reason why I’ve been an adviser for 20 years and have never ever had any client in any failed investment and never had a client complaint. Because I can read a Balance sheet. An Accounting Degree covers contract law, Business law, legal studies, accounting, finance, human resources, taxation, marketing, electives in Financial planning as well, Ethics. A Financial Planning degree on the other hand teaches someone how to hand out an FSG.
Each year countless number of Accounting students approach myself to become Financial Planners. One day one of them might just make an offer on your business or become your next staff member… but the FPA and their FPEC list has put a stop to that.
it doesn’t matter what you or i think. it is the standard setter who will make the ultimate determination as to what is and is not relevant.
as far as i can see, so far, they are saying it’s not relevant.
let’s chat after you have to do the grad dip
a lot of accountants do not even have a first degree.
so the fasea standards will catch many out.
I repeat again, thousands of accountants do not even have a first degree
The national exam in 2020 will sort them, and many others, out well before education requirements of 2024.
Totally agree. Financial planning was part of Accounting areas anyway.
If you were a full time financial planner you wouldn t have time for another job , ie a full time accountant , or another a part time lecturer i suspect .
“An Accounting Degree covers contract law, Business law, legal studies, accounting, finance, human resources, taxation, marketing, electives in Financial planning as well, Ethics. A Financial Planning degree on the other hand teaches someone how to hand out an FSG.”
What a complete load of crap! I completed a Bachelor of Financial Planning last year, and guess what?? It included the EXACT SAME subjects as 2 of the 3 year Accounting degree offered by the uni did – I actually could have thrown in one more year of study and been dual qualified. The only variation came with the FP specific subjects (portfolio construction, behavioural finance, risk management, superannuation and retirement planning, estate planning, advice strategy), and none of these were specifically “how to hand out an FSG”.
I have no idea what two-bit university allows you to lecture on financial planning for them, but they probably need to rethink your employment.
SLAM … burn … NICE ONE
“[i]A Financial Planning degree on the other hand teaches someone how to hand out an FSG[/i].” Really anonymous? Most (if not all) FP degrees contain a common/core set of subjects, including Accounting, Economics, Managerial Finance, Business Law etc, subjects that are also core subjects of accounting degrees. So your comment is offensive to those who have studied hard to complete a bachelor degree or post-graduate qualification in financial planning.
Everyone is obsessed with degrees when there’s so many given out by universities these days too many people forget that every Tom, Dick and Harry has one.
A degree in accounting is easy to get. A degree in financial planning is easy to get. You don’t need a particularly high IQ to get a degree in either of these disciplines.
What it’s all about is what happens afterwards. How good are you in the real world? Servicing clients, thinking creatively, laterally, solving problems, building a successful career and/or running a business and so on.
I am a Chartered Accountant; have lots of qualifications, Bachelors Degree, Postgraduate Diploma in accounting, Diploma in financial planning and a Masters Degree in tax. It all counts for very little in the end. Most of my clients do not give a stuff about the letters after my name. 90% of what I know and is worth anything to anybody has little to do with what books I read and memorised, so I could pass set exams, years ago.
Righteous claptrap.
I dont think so. These members are professional brave enough to voice their concerns. They are professional people expected despite those disagreement with the board. Have any of members of FPA or AFA ever stood up and raised their concerns for their members. Remember that CPA Australia was the first one (under members pressure) to have a full disclourse of their directors pay a year ago and then followed by CAANA and other organisations such as FPA. That is one of the reasons that people respect Accountants, not much so with financial planners.
Let’s look at two member based organisations. CPA Australia with no links to product manufacturers get’s broad based degrees recognised. CPA’s passionate with 300 members turning up voicing their association is engaged in unethical conduct. Outcome CPA Australia and Accountants recognised as a professional association and professionals in their own right. Gets heard by legislators and FASEA.
FPA Australia get’s degrees for all by making a submission calling for specialist FPEC degrees to be the standard. FPA Australia caught with pants down at Royal Commission and receives payments from members like CBA Financial Planning, AMP. Financial Planners quite happy with this and generally complicit in the behavior of member firms at Royal Commission. Therefore Financial Planners seen as Cowboys too.
Seems like FPA members are unprofessional and I won’t be renewing member fees because of the FPA’s unprofessional conduct. I do not want my reputation tarnished by being associated with an organisation whose members behave as heard on the Royal Commission.
I see that you are a CFP Anne. Given your comments above, does that make you a “Cowgirl”? Your comments are generalised in nature. I don’t disagree with the examples highlighted in the Royal Commission, but everyone should remember the RC’s purpose was to go hard on the examples of poor conduct it found. The other 95%+ of good conduct and great advice was ignored by the RC. Are all CPA accountants “bad” just because of their ex-CEO Alex “look at me” Malley? No, of course they aren’t. Don’t tarnish the majority.
Next you’ll be saying it was only those evil financial planners who sold “tax-effective” agri-business schemes to their clients. Perhaps there’s a suggestion in the name as to who may have been the biggest sellers of these products….
I remember calling on one accountant in the Hills who had large photos of himself at a forestry group in his reception. Told me proudly that he’d put $10M of clients money in to sort out their tax ‘issues’ and the nice agri people sent him a cheque for $1M. That was just the first year, we did even more the second year. How good was that he exclaimed!! yeah, nah…how are your clients doing was my question. Great, they all got tax deductions…. When he found out there was no in-built comms in the fund I was offering, that he’d have to agree on a fee with his client, the meeting fizzled out pretty quickly…the ‘trusted advisers’ at work.
my god, and you thought the FPA and AFA were bad, this CPA mob is beyond belief
they are an example of what a member organization SHOULD NOT be
good example for text books on what is [b]NOT[/b] good governance
The only difference between the CPA and FPA is that the the CPA venture in attemtping to diversify it’s revenue stream failed terribly. Whilst the FPA attempts, whilst deeply conflicted with it’s own members have been successful, largely by selling it’s members down the drain. The FPA makes less than a 1/3 of it’s revenue now from members fees. This need to stop.
that’s true. I cannot believe nor understand given the facts about the FPA that some still choose to remain as members. that’s why i let my membership lapse
It was the same with loss making of CAANZ. The point of difference between CPAA/CAANZ and associations such as FPA is the term “professional. Qualified accountants are professional, but FPA is not as suggested by FPA CEO.