FPA and AIA trade blows in bitter row

TheFinancial Planning Association(FPA) has clashed with theAustralian Investors Association(AIA) over the latter accusing the FPA of making false and misleading statements along with calling on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to investigate it under the Trade Practices Act.

The AIA unleashed a scathing attack on the financial planning industry yesterday, in light of theAustralian Securities and Investments Comission’s(ASIC) report on soft dollar disclosure, through a statement made by AIA president Bob Andrew and honorary treasurer David Child.

In it the AIA said: “Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the financial planning industry knows that the FPA has never policed compliance with their much touted code of ethics and yet use the code as a selling point for their members. This is false and misleading and if ASIC will not take action then the ACCC should”.

“Consumers know now that almost everyone in the financial planning industry is up to something and the chances are that they are conflicted and thus cannot act in the consumer's best interest,” the AIA alleges.

The FPA swiftly rejected the allegations as incorrect and misleading with FPA chief executive Kerrie Kelly stating the “AIA's implication that all financial planners are behaving inappropriately is wrong and fails to recognize the good work that FPA and its members, together with ASIC, are doing to raise standards of professional conduct and practices in the financial planning sector.”

“If David Child is serious about ethical behaviour and transparency, he should perhaps disclose his own conflict of interest and acknowledge his business interest in criticizing financial planners to promote his own rating business,” Kelly says.

However Child has rejected Kelly’s statements claiming he has always been open about his association with the AIA and its relationship with his business Adviser Ratings, saying they have a commonality of interest.

Child also stresses he has been a long term advocate of disclosure and cites articles published as far back as 1992 inMoney Managementarguing that case.