ASIC bans adviser in the west

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has permanently banned Perth-based financial adviser Paula Dollas-Ford after the regulator found she included client signatures on documentation without authorisation to prevent the rollover of superannuation entitlements from one fund to another.

At the time of the offence, Dollas-Ford was an authorised representative of Matrix Planning Solutions and the instruction stopped funds being transferred out of a Matrix fund and into a competing fund.

Matrix was alerted to the breach when a client asked why the funds in question had not been released. Upon discovering what the adviser had done, Matrix alerted ASIC and revoked her authorisation.

“It’s a very unfortunate one-off incident. The adviser had a very long and very good track record and she made a very bad error of judgement,” Matrix managing director Allison Dummett said, adding that no client had experienced financial loss as a result of the malpractice.

Matrix has conducted its own inquiry and review of procedures and is convinced it was an isolated incident.

“We have systems and procedures in place already that should prevent this from happening. The fact that we were alerted to it, the client did make enquiries but the product provider also contacted us, so I think a lot of the checks and balances in the system came into play,” Dummett said.