Most influential: Tom Collins

AN INDUSTRY veteran, Tom Collins’ influence in financial services has grown through sheer weight of experience.

For over 30 years, Collins has worked his way through a myriad of roles within the industry, from the funds management arena to financial planning.

This broad background has shaped Collins into a controversial commentator able to engage with the industry on a number of fronts — and his role as Sydney chapter chair of the Financial Planning Association (FPA) for the past two years has done nothing to temper the tone of his columns forMoney Management.

He continues to push the issues he feels are necessary to move the industry forward.

“I try to challenge the way financial planners have been doing their job, because it won’t work in the future,” Collins says.

Holistic or lifestyle financial planning has been one of the issues he has focused on this year.

“I’m hoping the industry will take more of a client focus, looking at their needs rather than just their investments and portfolio performance. It should be about the client achieving their goals,” he says.

Collins has also been vocal recently about the profound impact the Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA) will have upon distribution, and the need for further automation in order to cut costs.

“There is increasing pressure on fees and charges, and increases in efficiency could cut costs, which would enable savings to flow on to customers,” he says.

Collins runs his own financial services consultancy and has written a formidable tally of close to 60 articles forMoney Managementover the past four years.