Minor sanctions should not remain on FAR indefinitely

In a submission to government about the legislation – set to take effect on 1 January 2022 – the industry body said while it supports the proposal that written direction for specified training, counselling and supervision be undertaken by an adviser who commits an offence, it should not remain on the FAR indefinitely.

“The current proposal is that they will only be removed if the sanction has been revoked by the panel. We consider that sanctions that direct a financial adviser to undertake specific training, counselling or supervision, for example, become less relevant once that training, counselling and supervision has been undertaken and it would be unfair for those sanctions to appear on the FAR against the adviser’s name forever,” the submission, signed by SAFAA chief executive Judith Fox, read.

“Additionally, we do not consider it would benefit consumers, who would form the view that the adviser had yet to undertake training, counselling or supervision.”

It continues: “This removes discrimination against offenders who are convicted of minor offences which were committed some time ago.

“We see no rationale for including sanctions against financial advisers requiring training, counselling or supervision to remain on the record indefinitely, which would make this a harsher regime than that applying to criminal records.

SAFAA has suggested that the written directions sanctions should be automatically removed from the FAR after a five-year period.

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.