The duty of care extends to all

Since its inception, the Financial Planning Association (FPA) has set about establishing financial planning as a distinct profession. Such distinction recognises that the profession of financial planning is not restricted to advice on taxation nor is it limited to the legal aspects of financial security.

Since its inception, the Financial Planning Association (FPA) has set about establishing financial planning as a distinct profession. Such distinction recognises that the profession of financial planning is not restricted to advice on taxation nor is it limited to the legal aspects of financial security.

In addition, such distinction recognises that financial planning is not just about making investments. We are all aware and the public is becoming increasingly aware, that financial planning is the process of holistically addressing a client’s present and future financial security. We have fortified the distinctive nature of financial planning as a profession through the commencement of our professional education program, the CFP program.

Another major focus area for the FPA in recent years has been to develop public awareness of financial planning. While our formal public awareness campaign has just begun, our public profile has been steadily building for several years.

While we are gaining distinction for financial planning as a unique profession and gaining increasing public awareness, it is my firm belief that our development work is not yet complete.

While each and every one of us knows that financial planners have a duty of care at Common Law to the client, I want to suggest to you that in order to further strengthen the community’s respect for financial planners, we all need to develop a notional duty of care to each other.

It is my belief that we have a duty to carry ourselves in such a way as to reflect most positively on our fellow practitioners and fellow business principals and the emerging profession of financial planning. We have a duty to be conscious that our every action for clients must, at all times, place the client’s interest ahead of our own. And we have a duty to uphold the highest standard of professional ethics at all times.

Such a duty of care, I believe, applies not only to principal and practitioner members, but also to our members in the funds management field.

As we bathe in the euphoria of our achievements to date, consider what do you expect when you consult with any professional. I suggest that you would have the following expectations:

You would expect that the person from whom you are seeking advice has achieved minimum education qualifications. You would expect that the person from whom you are seeking advice has met experience requirements. You would expect that the person from whom you are seeking advice is committed to a very high standard of professional ethics and conduct.

The established professions have a major emphasis on education and experience for their practitioners, and the community, over several hundred years, has come to expect such minimum competencies and standards. Furthermore, the established professions endeavour to uphold such community expectations through professional standards and codes of conduct for their members. In addition, they have procedures for disciplining members who betray the community’s expectations and trust.

For an industry desiring to be truly recognised as a profession by the community at large, it follows that we must emulate the accepted and established models of professionalism.

The most valuable asset of the most succesful financial planner is not the number of clients or the amount of funds under management he or she has. The most valuable asset of the largest securities dealer is not the number of proper authority holders it has or the value of funds under management. The most prized asset of the most succesful funds management company is the not level of the funds under management.

The most valuable asset that any of us has, is the fundamental trust which has been placed in all of us by the Australian community. This is the asset that we must vigorously and actively defend. It is an asset that must be strengthened through a fundamental commitment by all financial services participants to enhance, through their every action, the evolution of the financial planning profession.

The broad and unencumbered development of community trust in us is something which the FPA cannot achieve on its own. It is something that ASIC cannot regulate or supervise.

I call upon each and every one of you to meet the community’s expectations of you as a professional. I call upon you to seek to professionally influence and motivate your colleagues. I ask that your every business action is one which will further advance and fortify the community’s trust in us as professionals.

We are in the adolescence of our ascendancy to professional status. A status that must be secured and nurtured through community trust. Such trust will ensure a long and succesful future for us all. Indeed, such trust will one day see financial planning regarded as one of the traditional professions.

The above is an edited extract of the closing speech delivered by FPA President Ray Griffin to the FPA Convention in Sydney, 1999.