Former Westpac adviser gets 8-year ban

According to a statement, Anthony Bishop of Chelmer, Queensland was previously an employee representative of Westpac Financial Consultants.

During the period of July 2010 and April 2014, Mr Bishop had been providing inappropriate advice to clients and was involved in the failure to provide one client with a written statement of advice, ASIC said.

Mr Bishop was found to have implemented a one-size-fits-all advice strategy that did not tailor advice to clients’ personal and financial circumstances. This strategy also led to clients being over insured with an inappropriate level of premiums, ASIC said.

Further, Mr Bishop had made one misrepresentation concerning tax savings.

ASIC deputy chair Peter Kell said, “Advice needs to be tailored to the client's needs and circumstances, and an advice provider must not lose sight of the needs of their client.”

Mr Bishop's behaviour was reported to ASIC in May 2014, the statement said.

A customer remediation process was undertaken and 29 former clients were paid a total of $1,127,543 made up of advice fees, refunds of premiums for inappropriate advice and market loss relating to investments.

**update**

Following the annnouncement, a BT spokesperson said the company "strongly supports ASIC in issuing a banning order on financial adviser, Mr Anthony Bishop".

"BTFG self-identified and first reported concerns about Mr Bishop to ASIC in May 2014. It said it detected a number of issues surrounding the advice and compliance of Mr Bishop and immediately took action. Mr Bishop has not worked for BTFG since 2014.

"BTFG conducted a thorough review process of Mr Bishop’s files at the time and has fully compensated all impacted clients.”