Low education exacerbates poor consumer perception
A lack of higher education standards in the financial adviser industry means consumers are going to perceive one-off bad apple incidents as typical of the industry, one financial planner believes.
Certified financial planner at independent financial advisory group Quantum Financial, Tim Mackay, said until a degree requirement is made uniform across the financial planner industry, the issue of consumers associating bad apples with the entire industry instead of seeing it as a one-off incident is going to persist.
"You look at the medical profession or the accounting profession, there are always going to be bad apples," he said.
"But because of the high standards they have set, when those bad apples appear, they're weeded out by the industry itself, but then they're perceived by consumers as being one-off bad apples. They're not perceived as being typical of the industry."
Mackay also said raising the bar for education standards can reduce the number of bad apples, boost consumer perceptions and improve professionalism of the industry over the next 10 to 15 years.
"Because we haven't raised those standards, consumers don't perceive us as being on par in terms of degrees, education and professionally as those other professions," he said.
AUTHOR
Malavika Santhebennur
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