Financial planners face multiple disciplinary layers


Financial planners are facing the prospect of multiple layers of scrutiny under plans outlined by the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg today with a single, central disciplinary body sitting alongside code-monitoring authorities.
Frydenberg used today’s update of the Government’s response to the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry to clarify the two levels of scrutiny for financial planners.
The Government said, that in line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission, it would be “creating a new disciplinary system for financial advisers that will include a single, central disciplinary body”.
“The new body will be responsible for the registration, monitoring and sanctioning of financial advisers,” it said. “This Royal Commission recommendation builds on the Government’s professional standards reforms to raise the educational, training and ethical standards of financial advisers.”
However, it said that the Government would also “proceed with monitoring of the Code of Ethics introduced as part of those reforms, which require financial advisers, from 15 November 2019, to subscribe to a code monitoring body that will enforce the Code of Ethics from 1 January 2020”.
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