We’re nobody’s puppet: AIA slammed for FPA-bashing
The Financial Planning Association (FPA) has denounced harsh criticism of its highly anticipated $3 million advertising campaign by the Australian Investors’Association (AIA) as hastily constructed, ill-informed and biased.
The AIA has zeroed in on the fact that the FPA’s campaign, which is due to start in October, will be funded by a handful of its institutional members.
Stating that the FPA “is increasingly looking like a puppet of the banks, insurance companies and fund managers”, the AIA called on any FPA advertisements to display “prominently” the names of those who have funded them.
The AIA also criticised institutionally-tied advisers, which make up over 80 per cent of the financial planning industry, and took aim at FPA chairman Kathryn Greiner.
“It [the FPA] regularly accepts large sums from investment sellers and its chairperson links the FPA to car sales by such statements as: ‘When you go into a Holden dealership to buy a Holden, you don’t get a Ford’, which could be paraphrased as: ‘If you are stupid enough to go to a financial planner employed by or owned by a product provider you deserve what you get’.”
But the FPA rapidly hit back at the accusations, stating that what is being touted as the ‘Value of Advice’ campaign is not a promotion of the FPA’s biggest members, but rather a promotion of the value of seeking good financial advice.
The FPA also stated that it did not accept extra funding from private institutions other than “appropriate and disclosed sponsorship arrangements”.
AIA treasurer David Childs also came in for FPA condemnation for not stating his own commercial interest in his company Advisor Ratings, which rates the performance of financial planners.
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