Royal Commission into Banking

Royal Commission into Banking

The Royal Commission into banking has revealed that  90% of financial advisers who provide advice to self-managed super funds have failed to comply with the best interests of their clients.  And 35% of all financial advisers do not have a degree at bachelor level or above.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/16/banking-royal-commission-told-90-of-financial-advisers-ignored-clients-best-interests


This has opened a can of worms.

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“In Asic’s view, we would say that the standards around competency and the qualifications you have to have to be participant in the financial advice sector, the ways in which advisers have been remunerated in many cases, and the conflicts of interest that that remuneration has generated between advisers and licensees and the clients  ...  [and] some of the conduct and consumer outcomes, that have been very poor on a widespread scale, indicate that we’re not yet at a position where we have a profession.”

So what has ASIC been doing all this time?  They've known about this for years and done nothing.

So toot2000, to take your observation to its logical conclusion that every financial adviser should have a degree at bachelor level or above, will that include SMSF managers? I have met a lot of people with a university degree who are as thick as two short planks and, conversely, there are people out in the real world who have a great knowledge and understanding of things but have not been formally qualified.

 

What financial advisers have done to good, honest people is ruin their future retirement which should be a criminal offence.  They innocently believed their advisor was giving them the best possible information that would be to their benefit but instead, he was recommending they put their money into companies/institutions that paid the highest commission for himself.  There is no room for unqualified people in such powerful positions.

 

Two further points toot2000. Firstly, the financial advisers who did the wrong thing by clients are in a small minority and the great majority are decent, hard working ethical people. Secondly, aren't you being a bit misandristic by suggesting that only males did the wrong thing?

Qualifications have very little or nothing to do with honesty, integrity and ethical behaviour or success IMO.

No formal education or who failed education in their younger years:
• Albert Einstein
• Abraham Lincoln
• Winston Churchill
and locally
• Dick Smith
• Lindsay Fox
• Anh Do

Highly educated and qualified Australians but perceived as scoundrels nevertheless:
• Lionel Murphy - lawyer, Attorney-General
• Peter Hollingworth – Bachelor of Arts Theology, Governor-General of Australia
• Jayant Patel - surgeon
• Helen Demidenko – lawyer, writer, literary hoaxer
• Billy Snedden – politician, lawyer

I won't pay a insurance salesman to give me financial advice, I probably know more than he does, and for the money they charge he should have three degrees.

Horses for courses.   Like mortage adivce - all advice has to be checked with more than once source unless you yourself are qualified. Google also helps find bad advice as well as good,

I'm more amazed at how much these banks dupe us all and not alone.

For instance I havent received paper statements since July 2017 fm NAB. I havent asked to go onine only and if I try to get back log say go back 100 days but dont. Seems have to download each month to get the full picture.- one thing I am trying to check - cant find it on line when try. Asked 3 times for statements. so far got 2 latest. But not the ones I need. Not good enough.

Many do as ask and pay for paper and ink for the statements to be printed on their data fm ISp and save the bank,  paper, printing and postage.But no reduction in fees for this.

If you have had meetings with different financial advisers including the banks. It becomes clear that they are eating pigeon pie and youre the pigeon.  Why do you think they are so keen on destroying the industry super funds, they want you to only have one choice bank super funds and advisers , they are running short of pigeons.

If people are stupid enough not to check the credentials and past history of anyone handling their money, then they deserve what they get. Too lazy to do research? want to help out your mate in his/her new job? then you have to bear the brunt of bad advice.

Such poetry my friend!

True to say, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, ask Raphel, haha

 

 

 

How does a Royal Commission work?  How do the people know what questions to ask, where to look, who to ask and how does it force people to "spill the beans"?

 

Answer:  Evidence.  They receive submissions from the public,  currently they've received 3433. They could be from victims or from whistleblowers. That provides the starting point and they go from there.

 

Perhaps they should have a Royal Commission into Parliamentarians and Burocrats and their pay and lurks and perks.

 

Some Commonwealth Bank financial advisers kept charging clients fees after they died, in one case for more than a decade, a royal commission has heard.One Count Financial planner knew his client had died in January 2004 but was still reaping almost $1000 a year in fees in December at 2015.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/commonwealth-bank-charged-dead-clients-advice-fees-banking-commission

Its horrifying to hear the stories coming out of the Banking RC. I wonder what Paul Keating is now thinking about his bold deregulation plan? Particularly in light of the banks divesting of their FP, insurance and investment subsidiaries? They are finally getting the foxes out of the hen houses. The banks can now develope a whole new culture based on what  they've learned during the last 30 years. Our economy relies on a strong banking system we just need to re-establish what a bank is.

 

Craig Meller shouldn’t be allowed to just step down and walk away, he should go straight to jail.

I heard that he did step down from AMP but he was actually retireing at the end of the year.  I'm sure he was advised to do that and he will still walk away with a hefty super., and all the benefits that go with it. These companies make billions in profits so I hope many customers will get back all they were robbed of.

 

Looks like nobody at the banks will warrant a jail term, they will all walk away with only a fine they can well afford.


Last year, the Commonwealth Bank, which is the largest company in the country, posted a full-year cash profit of $9.8bn, up 4.6%. It was followed by Westpac (full-year profit $8.1bn, up 3%), ANZ ($6.4bn, up 12%), and NAB ($6.6bn, up 2.5%).

Coalition assistant-treasurers since 2013 – Senator Sinodinos, Josh Frydenberg and now Ms O’Dwyer – came out of bank jobs into politics. The fourth, Senator Cormann, also was in financial services as an executive with a major private health insurance company.  And Malcolm Turnbull ran the Australian operation of investment bank Goldman Sachs.

ASIC is the law enforcement agency that has the power to launch criminal and civil proceedings against banks. But for the past 15 years, it has deliberately chosen not to.  So why not?

 

 Greg Medcraft was the chairman of Asic until November 2017. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

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