Globalising forces to impact on NZ advisers

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Financial regulations in New Zealand will be increasingly driven by overseas developments, according to Institute of Financial Advisers (IFA) chief Peter Lee.

Wednesday, November 23rd 2011, 6:30AM 3 Comments

by Benn Bathgate

Lee also said that gives professional bodies such as the IFA that engage with global peers the chance to shape those future regulations.

He was speaking to Good Returns after trips to Washington for the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) meeting and Australia for the Financial Planning Association (FPA) Conference.

"One of the interesting things that came out of that was the importance of the regulators - particularly IOSCO [International Organisation of Securities Commissions] - a coordinated body for regulators around the world," Lee said.

"I think what we're going to see is more and more regulations in New Zealand will be driven by what happens overseas and how that practice gets circulated."

IFA president Nigel Tate also said he expected to see future regulations driven by IOSCO.

"The majority of the securities commission heads around the world are members [of IOSCO] including New Zealand, and they are driving down through the G20 a common set of requirements and standards, that gets driven down to the domestic regulators."

Both Lee and Tate said that the IFA played a key role in the new adviser regulations here, and that given New Zealand's principles-based regulation, the IFA can continue to complement the regulators.

"That's what we've been doing with things like our guidance notes," said Lee.

"The FMA has quite clearly said that that's a role of professional bodies, because they don't want to do that with a principles based regime, therefore it fits very much into that,  here's a role for a professional body to create a bit more certainty. That seems to be a trend around the world, that move to principles based rather than prescriptive based."

Benn Bathgate is a business reporter for ASSET and Good Returns, email story ideas to benn@goodreturns.co.nz

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