Financial planners finish 2009 on their own terms

The Australian financial planning industry has finished 2009 having successfully surmounted a number of its greatest challenges, writes Mike Taylor.

The Australian financial planning industry has arguably finished 2009 having successfully surmounted a number of its greatest challenges.

In a year that kicked off with the collapse of Storm Financial and consequently gave rise to high levels of public and political negativity, the industry has managed to finish the 12 months having achieved serious progress on its own terms.

While the industry’s perennial critics have remained as vocal as ever, they cannot deny that the Financial Planning Association’s move to phase out commissions and the Investment and Financial Services Association’s member charter represented significant steps forward.

As well, and despite the furore generated by the collapse of Storm Financial, the findings of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (Ripoll Inquiry) broadly recognised the efforts of the industry to find its own way forward.

The findings of the Cooper Review into superannuation will be delivered mid-2010 but the Government is already signalling that, notwithstanding the incessant criticisms of the Industry Super Network, it will be pursuing an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary agenda for change.

The challenge for the financial planning industry as it moves into 2010 will be to avoid complacency by continuing the evolutionary process. In doing so, it must be prepared to identify its shortcomings and eliminate its bad apples.

Naturally, with 2010 being the year the Government seeks to draft the legislative amendments resulting from the Ripoll and Cooper reviews, the financial planning industry will be hoping to avoid any scandals and upsets.

Indeed, it will be hoping that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s shadow shopping exercise delivers a broadly clean bill of health.

That the financial planning industry will be subject to further criticism and attacks in 2010 should be taken as a given.

The industry superannuation funds will not be altering their agenda and the planning industry has long exhibited a capacity to turn on itself.

This year has arguably ended better for financial planners than it started, and Money Management wishes all its readers a peaceful Christmas and the very best for the New Year.