The Australian Bankers Association says to help banks employ only competent and ethical financial advisers, the banking industry has today announced a new, improved way of hiring financial advisers.
This relates to wealth advisors only, not mortgage brokers. Why not extend it to all types of advice? You could also argue they should be doing this anyway, as part of best practice recruitment.
“Sometimes a financial adviser can be removed from one financial institution for poor conduct, only to turn up working and continuing their poor practices at another,” Australian Bankers’ Association Executive Director – Retail Policy Diane Tate said.
“To help avoid this, the banking industry has developed a protocol to make it easier to check how financial advisers have performed in previous jobs.
“This will better identify financial advisers who have not met the industry’s minimum legal and ethical standards, and help employers make more informed recruitment decisions,” she said.
The protocol sets minimum standards for checking references and sharing information, through a series of standardised questions and record keeping practices.
“This is an important step by the banking industry to improve the quality of advice, support the professionalisation of the financial advice industry and build trust and confidence in banks,” Ms Tate said.
“The subscribing licensees to the protocol represent 38% of the entire financial advice market. The more widespread this is, the more effective it will be in making sure individuals with poor conduct records don’t move around the industry,” she said.
Banks and other financial advice providers can become a subscribing licensee by contacting the ABA.
Ms Tate said banks and regulators agreed on the need for financial institutions to do more to improve recruitment of financial advisers.
The protocol was developed with input from regulators and other stakeholders. Subscribing licensees will need to make changes to their recruitment practices to comply with the protocol by 1 March 2017.
“The ABA is also progressing work on establishing an industry register of conduct breaches covering all bank employees, which was announced in April as part of new initiatives to address concerns with conduct and culture in banks,” Ms Tate said.
The following table sets out the subscribing licensees to the Protocol.
Name Subscribing licensee AMP AMP Financial Planning (AFSL 232706) Charter Financial Planning (AFSL 234665) Hillross Financial Services (AFSL 232705) ipac (AFSL 234656) SMSF Advice (AFSL 234664) Australia and New Zealand Banking Group ANZ Financial Planning (AFSL 234527) Elders Financial Planning (AFSL 224645) Financial Services Partners (AFSL 237590) Millennium3 Financial Services (AFSL 244252) Ri Advice Group (AFSL 238429) Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Bendigo Financial Planning (AFSL 237898) Commonwealth Bank BW Financial Advice (AFSL 230727) Commonwealth Financial Planning (AFSL 231139) Commonwealth Private (AFSL 314018) Commonwealth Securities (AFSL 238814) Count Financial (AFSL 227232) Financial Wisdom (AFSL 231138) Macquarie Group Macquarie Equities (AFSL 237504) National Australia Bank Apogee Financial Planning (AFSL230689) Garvan Financial Planning (AFSL230692) Godfrey Pembroke (AFSL 230690) JBWere (AFSL 341162) Meritum Financial Group (AFSL245569) MLC Financial Planning (AFSL230692) NAB Financial Planning (AFSL 230686) NAB Financial Planning Self Employed (AFSL 230686) Suncorp Group Suncorp Financial Services (AFSL 229885) Westpac Magnitude Group (AFSL 221557) Securitor Financial Group (AFSL 240687) Westpac Banking Corporation (AFSL 233714)
