The financial advice industry should be represented by a single professional body that has the power to ban bad advisers from the industry, according to Perpetual Private Wealth group executive Geoff Lloyd.
"We probably need to think about moving from an industry to a profession," Lloyd said yesterday at the Russell Investments 2010 Australian Investment Summit.
"Professions have a professional body. If you look at reference points we have today, the accountancy profession has many bodies and we should raise that bar even higher to have the highest level of professional standards and it should be one body," he said.
"That body should centre very much on what is the entry level, ongoing education and training, and obligations of its members.
"Our fiduciary standards, education standards, and our entry level for anybody in this profession needs to keep getting higher and higher. And if you are not good enough, we need to have a mechanism to remove you from our profession."
Merger discussions between the two largest financial planning associations, the FPA and the Association of Financial Advisers, have been held but have so far not resulted in a united body.
Lloyd joined Perpetual last month from BT Financial Group, where he was general manager of advice and planning.
