Sentinel Private Wealth enters enforceable undertaking

Surveillance conducted by the corporate regulator found that Sentinel Private Wealth advisers hadn’t completed adequate inquires into clients’ circumstances, completed sufficient analysis of the suitability of strategies, defined the scope of advice, and had used “generic reasons” to support their advice.

Further, Sentinel’s audits did not sufficiently identify the issues, and ASIC said it was concerned the business “may have failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that its representatives complied with financial services laws”.

The enforceable undertaking will see Sentinel engage an independent expert to “assess, make recommendations and report” on the company’s audit framework, as well as review the business’ policies and procedures.

The independent expert will also then conduct ongoing reviews of Sentinel’s client file audits for approximately 18 months.

In 2015, ASIC imposed a number of licence conditions on Sentinel's AFSL after an independent review found numerous compliance issues within the business, and last month the regulator handed a seven-year ban to one of the business' authorised representatives.