Firing with an empty chamber
By
Kate Kachor
Mon 26 Oct 2009
The issues facing Australia's financial services industry cannot be fixed by a silver bullet, as the current defined role of advisers is too broad and therefore too difficult to regulate.
These words have been spoken by many within the industry over the course of the past 12 months, though in this case, it is the words of young adviser Darren Furst.
Furst, an adviser with Murphy Financial Solutions, used his submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee inquiry into Australia's financial services sector to point out a number of concerns.
"A financial adviser is a conduit between the client and the solutions to satisfy their needs. An adviser should always be working in the best interest of the client, ensuring their needs and objectives are at the forefront of all recommendations, be it product or strategy related," he said.
If advisers did not act in the best interest of their clients, they would not last long as they would be found out, he said.
"It is unfortunate that some clients lose because of these dishonest people, but this happens across all industries, and [is] impossible to regulate against," he said.
In Furst's view, Australia's general regulatory environment is quite sound and attempting to regulate against people who deliberately do wrong is futile.
"I feel for the many clients that have been affected, but I am positive that stronger regulation would not have prevented the collapses. These firms or advisers that recommended these products probably had very compliant operations," he said.
Another point of contention for Furst is that of the adequacy of licensing arrangements.
"[It] is interesting as I believe the licensees are never really mentioned in these discussions. These are the groups that hold the Australian financial services licences and who authorise the advisers to provide advice," he said.
"The fact that the majority of the major licensees are also product manufactures surely is a big conflict. If product manufacturers could not be licensees, many of the issues would be relieved.
"We as an industry went away from tied agents (in theory) but in practice most advisers are licensed through the group where a majority of their business is placed, big conflict.
"If all advisers had to be licensed direct with ASIC, and then product manufacturers were just that, then all parties could be represented without hidden agendas or conflicts."
Furst indeed raises a number of solid points that no doubt have echoed around the industry for the past 12 months.
The decision to air his views comes from many industry conversations with advisers this year where they feel their voice perhaps hasn't been heard.
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