The CEO of the AIOFP, Peter Johnston says, “It has happened again”.

It has happened again, Canberra Bureaucrats have now inflicted another cost onto Advisers who have no choice but to pass it onto to their clients.

We are pleased the initial CSLR set up costs are met by the 10 largest Institutions, and so it should be. Considering Institutions are responsible for over $40 billion of failed funds since 2007 and today represent over 97% of all AFCA complaints, they are by far the greatest failure for consumers in the Financial Services industry over the past 40 years.

Our understanding is most past consumer AFCA debts are a result of product failure where an Advisory firm is somehow blamed for a failure, ‘hung drawn and quartered’ by ASIC with no capacity to pay whilst those responsible for the product failing or allowing it onto the market in the first place, run for legal and political cover.

This is precisely why we do not want QAR allowing Institutions back into the Advice arena, they are simply not very good at it.

Furthermore, in my 45 years in the industry I have never heard of the term ‘financial firm’ before AFCA started using it. It seems a concise and convenient way of grouping Advisers and product manufacturers together under one category to protect the Institutions from market scrutiny and damage.

When are Canberra Bureaucrats going to understand that ADVICE and PRODUCT are two diametrically opposed functions and should be separated?

We will now put this issue on our lobby list with Adviser clients and both sides of politics.

Regards.

Peter Johnston | Executive Director
Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals
Suite 1211, 1 Queens Road, Melbourne VIC 3004
P 1800 111 203, d 03 9863 7574, m 0418 857 621
www.aiofp.net.au | Download my business card

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