Banks still paying millions to dealer groups
Australia’s major banks have confirmed that millions of dollars a year are still flowing to financial planning dealer groups to support the banks’ products in the market.
A series of answers provided to the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) on Corporations and Financial Services review of Life Insurance has confirmed the degree to which payments continued to be made in the interests of educating advisers.
The ANZ Banking Group confirmed to the committee that it paid $2.7 million to external dealer groups last financial year with the payments “used for education and training of their financial planners”.
Similarly Westpac’s insurance arm, Westpac Life Insurance Services Limited was confirmed as making “payments to certain adviser dealer‐groups for the purpose of adviser education and training, including for changes to products”.
However, in explaining its approach, Westpac said the Life Insurance Framework (LIF) reforms, commencing 1 January, next year, “will ensure these payments are quarantined for this purpose”.
Recommended for you
The FSCP has announced its latest verdict, suspending an adviser’s registration for failing to comply with his obligations when providing advice to three clients.
Having sold Madison to Infocus earlier this year, Clime has now set up a new financial advice licensee with eight advisers.
With licensees such as Insignia looking to AI for advice efficiencies, they are being urged to write clear AI policies as soon as possible to prevent a “Wild West” of providers being used by their practices.
Iress has revealed the number of clients per adviser that top advice firms serve, as well as how many client meetings they conduct each week.
