Officials urge speed on adviser reform

The incoming Minister of Commerce – whoever it turns out to be – will have an early chance to set out his/her views on where regulation of financial advisers should go.

Tuesday, September 20th 2005, 6:18AM

by Rob Hosking

A Cabinet paper to outgoing Commerce Minister Pete Hodgson just as the politicians hit the campaign trail proposed the government putting out a clear guideline of where regulation will go following the report of the Task Force on Financial Intermediaries.

“Essentially we will be proposing that the government make in principle decisions on the recommendations to give a level of certainty to the market about the general direction the government proposes to take in relation to the recommendations,” says the paper, which covers the issues set out for the wide-ranging review of the non-banking finance sector.

”This will enable the market to start to prepare for the reforms.”

The key recommendations of the Task Force included:

All personal financial advisers to be members of an approved professional body
Restrictions on who can call themselves a “personal financial adviser”
A disciplinary process with effective sanctions including, where necessary, barring the adviser from practice
Clear and concise disclosure of intermediary functions, obligations, and remuneration
Requirements for intermediaries to comply with appropriate standards relative to their functions

There was some concern from the industry after the report was released and the Ministry of Economic Development indicated a longer timetable for implementation than the industry was expecting.

“While we appreciate that there is a desire in the sector to see the reforms progress as fast as possible, there are overlaps in relation to some of the issues raised by the [Task Force] and the regulation of the rest of the financial sector (for example issues of registration, dispute resolution are common to all areas of the financial sector).”

The much wider review includes insurance, collective investments vehicles, trustee companies and finance companies.

Hodgson was another stop-gap Commerce Minister for Labour, and assuming the special votes do not go against Labour he is destined for the health portfolio.

Frontrunners for the commerce job are David Cunliffe – who has been fronting for the government in a number of finance and investment forums over the past year – or former commerce minister Lianne Dalziel.

Rob Hosking is a Wellington-based freelance writer specialising in political, economic and IT related issues.

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