Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association chief executive Phillip Matthews has congratulated Sovereign on its decision to discontinue its business relationship with disgraced Masterton advisory firm, Morison Guildford.
Morison Guildford were associated the failed investment ventures of Michael Bastion and were heavily criticised in a recent Securities Commission report into the so called investment fund which turned out to be nothing more than a scam.
"Sovereign are to be congratulated for the move they have taken and we would welcome any other companies that still have business relationships with this firm to follow a similar course of action" Matthews says.
In praising the actions of Sovereign Matthews was critical of the level of care some financial product providers have taken in deciding who they will deal with in the past.
"If we are to stamp out poor, incompetent and illegal advice we have to have the support of the product providers and manufacturers because without their endorsement bad advisers will simply not have anything to sell" he says.
"Until such time as the adviser has to prove a high level of competence, experience and ethical behaviour before being provided with an agency agreement or the like we will continue to have instances of bad advice to the public."
Matthews was quick to acknowledge that there is already a growing attention to this aspect of business relationships amongst many of the larger financial institutions but there was still a long way to go, further with some companies than with others.
"Our association is doing its best to raise the standards of financial advice but we can only deal with those who choose to be members of the association whereas the companies can play their part across the whole market place and hopefully, at least reduce the number of advisers who simply should not be in business," he says.
Apology to Morison Guildford and correction.
In an article which appeared on the Good Returns website, on Tuesday 25 June 2002, there was a statement that Morison Guildford were promoters of the failed investment ventures of Michael Bastion. This statement was wrong. The Securities Commission concluded that Morison Guildford were not promoters in regard to Gideon as already noted by Good Returns on 13 May 2002. Good Returns unreservedly apologies to Messers Morison and Guildford for the distress and embarrassment that such a statement has caused them.
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