FPA chairman urges individual ASIC rego for planners
The Financial Planning Association (FPA) chairman, Matthew Rowe has called for the implementation of compulsory individual registration for all financial planners with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Acknowledging Friday’s announcement by the Commonwealth Bank of higher educational and other standards for its financial planners, Rowe said there was a need for self-regulation to sit alongside regulation by ASIC with a fully enforceable professional code.
He claimed in an FPA Chairman’s Update that membership of a professional association, enshrinement of the term financial planner/adviser and a public register all formed part of a vision for self-regulation.
“I know it is heartbreaking to see the profession’s reputation denigrated with Inquiry after Inquiry, and as a result, more and more regulation,” he said. “The only answer is for regulation to work alongside a fully enforceable professional code of practice and compulsory individual registration for all planners with ASIC. The FPA is seeking to set minimum education and experience standards, essential to building public trust in our profession.”
Rowe’s latest Chairman’s Update stood in stark contrast to one he issued a few weeks’ ago when he was strongly critical of the cultural issues which had given rise to the problems within the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning operations.
On this occasion, however, he congratulated the bank for its embrace of higher educational standards and the FPA-controlled Certified Financial Planner designation and its support for a national industry forum to address the 61 recommendations of the recent Senate Report.
“We have always seen ourselves as a participant in such a process and we will step up to the plate to move things to the next stage,” Rowe said. “We feel action needs to occur and all industry participants should sign up to binding outcomes from a forum of this nature.”
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