The Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) on Corporations and Financial Services registered its Inquiry into proposals to lift the professional, ethical and education standards in the financial services industry on Monday – one day before the FSI interim report was released on Tuesday morning.
The inquiry comes after Opposition leader Bill Shorten called last week for a “fresh Senate inquiry” into how CBA customers lost their savings.
The new PJC inquiry’s terms of reference cover the adequacy of the current qualifications required by financial planners; the implications of professional rules of conduct (and the professional regulation of those rules); and the recognition of professional bodies by ASIC.
But according to Mr Batten, the FSI would be a “much more obvious forum” for considering which qualifications should be mandated for financial planners.
“The FSI [interim report] has certainly raised issues to do with qualifications of advisers, and so one can expect it will be making recommendations about that,” he said.
“The FSI has already been tasked by the government to take on the recommendations of the Senate ASIC inquiry report,” he added.
FSI chair David Murray also has an expert panel at his fingertips as well as the people who are advising them, Mr Batten said.
Indeed, it is surprising that the new PJC committee was formed the day before the FSI interim report was released, he said.
“You would have thought that … perhaps one might have taken the time to see what the report had to say about [professional standards] rather than to hold this inquiry,” Mr Batten said.
Submissions to the new advice inquiry are due by 5 September, whereas the final FSI report is set to be handed down in November 2014.
“I don’t know what [the PJC’s] plans are for a hearing, but you imagine they would be hard pressed to be coming out with a report much before 1 November in any case,” Mr Batten said.
“So does that mean we have two different reports from two different bodies … on this point, covering the same territory – is that useful?” he asked.
