Tempers flare in NZ Westpac ad furore

A WestpacTrust advertisement in New Zealand promising free advice from staff trained in savings and investment has angered many in the NZ financial planning industry.

A WestpacTrust advertisement in New Zealand promising free advice from staff trained in savings and investment has angered many in the NZ financial planning industry.

“Take our free advice,” the ad urges “and avoid the more expensive kind...since we’ve just trained 673 of our staff in savings and investment advice...”

Several financial planners have expressed their concern to Money Management over the ad which they say misrepresents the true extent of the WestpacTrust advisers’ training.

Simon Hassan, a board member of the Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Asso-ciation (FPIA) and head of the FPIA ethics committee, says at the very least, the West-pacTrust ad is “not appropriate”.

“I believe there was a certain amount of deliberate confusion raising on the part of West-pacTrust with the ad,” Hassan says.

“The FPIA will probably raise the issue with WestpacTrust directly.”

However, Hassan says the FPIA is not in a position to wage an all out media assault on WestpacTrust and will adopt a “more subtle response”.

“We will use the opportunity to encourage people in New Zealand to think about what is a professional and qualified financial adviser and what free advice is really worth by asking our members to write letters to their local papers,” Hassan says.

“A real qualification is certainly not a one week course, which I believe the WestpacTrust people go through, that is not examined and is of no real substance.”

However, a spokesman for WestpacTrust, Peter Thornbury, says its “investment consult-ants” have completed a course provided by a very credible educational institution, the Open Polytechnic.

“Our consultants have been through a modular course developed by the Open Polytechnic that covers many aspects of investment and finance markets,” Thornbury says.

“The Open Polytechnic is one of the largest providers of educational services to the busi-ness and finance sector.”

He says the ad is only intended to highlight WestpacTrust’s commitment to providing an educated staff member in each branch to give limited investment advice. The “investment consultants” can only offer advice for customers wishing to invest up to $25,000 and sell only multi-sector WestpacTrust products.

Thornbury says a number of safeguards are in place every step of the way with each deci-sion made by the consultant checked by a quality assessor.

“It is a structured, needs-based system that identifies the most appropriate investment for each client.”

He says if more detailed advice is required the consultant can refer the client up to a WestpacTrust “investment adviser” or up to the top level “financial planner”.

“I understand our financial planners are members of the FPIA,” Thornbury says.

He says WestpacTrust are willing at any time to sit down with the FPIA and discuss its objections.