Experience needed to provide good advice: ANZ

Speaking at a recent roundtable event, Ms George said that while ANZ encouraged its advisers to adopt the government’s proposed education standards, experience remained of the utmost importance.

“I don’t think we should dismiss experience," she said. "Experience is important – no one would want a doctor to operate from a five-year university degree where they didn’t step into an operating theatre, so I don’t think we should expect financial planners to do the same. So the recognition of experience is important."

Nevertheless, Ms George said the bank is pushing for its advisers to get educated.

“We’re encouraging everybody to adopt what the education standards are likely to be because we know that at some point you are going to end up with a degree qualification, and for our salaried planners we're insisting that they have the Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning,” she said.

“We’ll continue to do that. We are still working with our aligned groups about what the best way to go forward is.”

Ms George, however, expressed concern about the lack of courses for advisers.

“It’s out to 2024 for existing advisers to get a degree or similar, but there is no one with courses so it looks like a long time but we don’t know what it looks like and we haven’t got any courses,” she said.