FPA CEO denies control is exerted by large institutions

The chief executive officer (CEO) of the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA), Sarah Abood, has denied that large institutions exert control or influence over the association.

Speaking at AIA Australia’s Adviser Summit last week alongside Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) national president Sam Perera, Ms Abood acknowledged that a number of questions have been raised regarding who the soon-to-be-merged associations will represent.

“I think it is really important that people understand that we’re a member-led association. We have been and will continue to be, and the first object in our constitution is to represent the interests of our members,” she said.

“The members of both associations, but more importantly the members of the new association, will be individual financial advisers and planners, and I think there’s been some perception that, perhaps in the past, there’s been more influence or more control exercised by large institutions. That’s not the case, certainly hasn’t been the case for the FPA for a number of years.”

Ms Abood noted that the FPA does work “very closely” with licensees and large institutions.

“We think that’s important because those organisations are very important to our members, and we need to be engaged with them and we’ll continue to be,” she stated.

“But they’re not members of the new association, they don’t pay membership fees and we don’t advocate for them. Those organisations all have their own bodies that they can be members of, and we engage with those bodies.”

According to Ms Abood, it is in the interests of the association’s members to engage with bodies like the Financial Services Council and the Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI).

“But that’s always in the context that we’re doing that on behalf of individual financial advisers and individual financial planners,” she explained.

Additionally, the FPA CEO suggested that having the status of a professional association does not mean advocating for consumers.

“That’s a different job. That’s a job that’s done in our space, for example, by Super Consumers Australia, it’s done by Choice, a number of other bodies, National Seniors and so on, and we talk with them,” she said.

“What it does mean is that we operate in the public interest, and that means that we put the interests and needs of the communities that we serve first, as our members do. Our members put the interests of their clients first. We see that as being entirely consistent, and that’s why we have the status of a professional association.”

Ms Abood said that the upcoming merger would give the associations more power to engage with the government and regulators through “strength in numbers”.

“We’ve all had feedback, certainly I have in my first year in the role, that there was a sense that our industry was fractured and fractious. That, if you were in government, you didn’t know what advisers thought, so as a result, we ended up with the government telling us what to do,” she said.

Legal completion of the merger is currently expected to take place on 3 April, with a transition period running from April to June.

Jon Bragg

Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.