Call for Financial Planner Registration Board

A Financial Planner Registration Board (FPRB) should be created to “protect consumers from Storm Financial and Westpoint-style losses”, according to Puzzle Financial Advice director Bruce Baker.

Baker made the call for the FPRB in a submission last week to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services Inquiry into Financial Products and Services in Australia.

He called for his proposed FPRB to require higher education standards from planners and a requirement that they act in the best interest of clients, providing a discussion paper on how the FPRB might work.

“The goal would be to register only quality financial planners delivering acceptable advice,” he said.

Baker also called for the application of recent key recommendations by Paul Volcker, chairman of the US President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, to be applied to the Australian services regulatory system.

In his submission, Baker reiterated Volcker’s statement that his proposed changes would “help create a financial system (in the US) that is not going to be so prone to crisis”.

Baker called on the Government to embrace Volcker’s changes by “providing an explicit guarantee to Australian commercial banks — the core of the system”.

“These commercial banks, which would simply focus on deposit taking and providing credit, must be more highly regulated.

“They would need to divest all highly risky entrepreneurial activities, including proprietary trading and wealth management,” he said.