An article by Jeremy Cooper, Deputy Chairman, ASIC, in The Age, 16 September 2005.
ASIC is not picking on financial planners but just doing its job, writes Jeremy Cooper
Financial planners are wrong to think that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission is picking on them. True, we were far from happy with what we found in our super switching advice surveillance late last year and early this year.
But by early last month, when we released our report on the surveillance, we were more confident that advisers were clear on their obligations and we said so. A lot of work had been done in the interimby the industry associations and ASIC.
In our surveillance, ASIC looked at 260 examples of written recommendations by advisers to switch from one super fund to another. The advice came from advisers working for 19 different Australian financial services licensees (not just Financial Planning Association members) from an initial list of 7500 examples of switching advice. The methodology was sound and the results real.
What did ASIC find?
Much of the advice was sub-standard.