Compliance costs difficult under new regime: Shanks

yes its going to be an interesting next 12 months , if we only had all the main groups as FAP's, and a lot of these are Australian owned anyway, Im not sure how that is a good representation of the New Zealand Mortgage adviser industry to the New Zealand consumer with most of these Auzzie owned groups having their client CRM's backed up in Australia with New Zealanders banking and real estate information being owned by overseas companies.

The Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services as approved now by the Minister states that as part of the code standard Part 1 “Ethical behaviour, conduct, and client care” an adviser must protect a client’s information. Advisers who are currently using a group operated CRM will be required to inform their clients of the third party/group/FAP who is in receipt of their personal and financial information when they make an application to a lender or insurer on their behalf. The client must consent to the third party holding their information however advisers should already be doing all of this under their current obligations within the Privacy Act. I’m yet to meet a client who would be happy been told that his or her personal & financial information was currently been held by a third party in Australia without their consent.

What on Earth does "If they have their own FAP they will need to have processes and controls and competency to that of a Level 5 qualification if they do not choose to obtain the Level 5 qualification," mean??? I thought it was only nominated representatives don't need level 5. Don't FAs need it even if they are not FAPs? I assume Bendon was misquoted, his members will all have to be FAs with level 5 or is he saying they can somehow be 'nominated reps'? I am currently grappling with the new requirments. Yes getting level 5 has some cost in terms of time and money but on an ongoing basis I cannot see how compliance with be so onerous it is impossible for small advisers businesses. Too much scare mongering out there. Just get on and do it already!

Evolve or die. The good people always do.