CPA Australia drops move to financial services licence
CPA Australia, one of two accountancy bodies in Australia, will not proceed with its plans to gain a financial services licence claiming that the commerical nature of the move was too risky.
The final decision came from the board of the association who felt that there were considerable commerical risks with the venture as well as potential risk to the CPA Australia brand.
As such the board said it would be inappropriate to expose the whole membership to those risks when many are not, and do not plan to be involved, with financial planning.
In a statement released this morning the CPA Australia financial planning manager Kathy Bowler said that the decision had been made after an extensive evaluation of the the proposal.
Bowler says the association were compelled to investigate the move as part of its responsibility to its member and the decision at the board level examined all the issues involved with the planned moves.
CPA Australia will remain active in the provision of financial planning services, according to Bowler, through its recent introduction of its own financial planning designation - CPA (FPS) Financial Planning Specialist as well as through its own codes of conduct and continued professional development programmes for members.
“We believe the most effective way to serve our members is to continue work with and support existing Licence Holders to improve the service they provide to our members, rather than establish our own licence,” Bowler says in the statement.
CPA Australia announced its intention to secure its own unrestricted financial services licence in February of this year and if its plans had come to fruition would have potentially created one of the nation’s largest dealer groups.
At present, 3,000 members of CPA Australia are already providing some form of financial planning.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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