Better Advice bill could hurt individual financial planners

Appearing at a Senate economics hearing to discuss the bill on Friday, FPA’s head of policy, strategy and innovation, Ben Marshan spoke about concerns regarding the legislation’s inclusion of an individual personal registration system for financial planners.

“Individual financial planners don’t have a relationship with ASIC. Individual financial planners often don’t have a relationship with the Tax Practitioners Board and other regulators,” Mr Marshan said.

“Therefore, in our experience… individual financial planners who don’t have that individual professional obligation... won’t necessarily fully understand all their regulatory obligations, all their requirements.

“We think it’s an important step to foster professionalism for the individual to be individually accountable including the registration process.”

While FPA has welcomed the introduction of the bill from 1 January 2022, Mr Marshan noted another issue regarding the formation of a panel to act as the single disciplinary body.

“I think the issue with the bill at the moment is that it’s quite specific,” he said.

“That once the panel is appointed, that’s the panel and if there is a conflict and someone has to step off, then that’s the panel that you’re left with.”

Mr Marshan suggested “reserve panelists” be introduced should a conflict arise.

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.