Adviser registration pushed out to July

The delayed opening date for the Financial Service Providers Register to July 1, which appeared on the Companies Office blog, is another blow to the December timeline to meet adviser regulation as amendments to the initial bills to address their shortcomings continue to sit in Select Committee stage.

"The date has been changed to accommodate legislative timetables involving registration and authorisation fees, dispute resolution schemes, implementation procedures, and other matters relating to both the FSPR and the FAA regimes," wrote Catherine Otten, registry policy analyst at the Companies Office, in her blog. The Ministry of Economic Development, of which the Companies Office is a part, did not immediately respond to Good Returns' inquiries.

In a recent interview with Asset Magazine, Commerce Minister Simon Power reiterated the start date for the regime is not going to change. Still, Commissioner for Financial Advisers David Mayhew has indicated the go-live date does not have to encompass all aspects of the regime, and that the important thing was that the industry was engaging with the new regulations.

The December deadline for the regulations has been a point of contention for the past year, with seeming delays at every hurdle from the appointment of the code committee to the ongoing hold-ups to the release of their draft code of conduct after an exhaustive consultation process.

Last month, the Investment Savings and Insurance Association surveyed its members and found most of them expected to be ready in time for the new regulations, though that would require policy-makers to pass the amended legislation without any delays.

Comments from our readers

On 13 April 2010 at 9:03 am Geoff said:

Typical, the Government Minister expects Advisors to jump, sit, roll over because he said so? Some balance in accountability is needed here, as Advisors have been told to be more professional, accountable and transparent, and yet the very people telling us what we need to do, even after 2 years of robust discussion and hundreds of submissions from within the industry, still don't really know what they want, and are yet to agree on the detail?

My question to the Government is, after December 1st, who and how are they going to Police those Advisers who have not yet met any legal requirement to conduct business?

On 13 April 2010 at 3:40 pm Ron Flood said:

They came up with a plan "so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel". Draft Code Standard 7 states that "An AFA who has reasonable grounds to suspect that another AFA has not complied with the Code OR that a person has not complied with the Act, MUST report the suspected non-compliance to the Securities Commission.
So Geoff, I suspect that in the early stages they will be relying on whistleblowers to do the policing.

On 15 April 2010 at 8:33 am Independent Observer said:

As I've mentioned previously, the cost and resources that will be required to effectively monitor (police) this rules-based approach will prohibit the Regulator from any meaningful outcomes. The next decade will witness a frustrated attempt to enforce this approach before a 'bright-spark' either privatises the monitoring (costly) or adopts a more robust alternative (principles-based)

On 20 April 2010 at 3:57 pm Johnny Adviser said:

It's a template previously used for Real Estate agent regulation. Most complaints about REA's are from other REA's, under their new regime.

Adviser registration pushed out to July

Advisers are going to have to wait another couple of months before they can get the registration process moving after the Companies Office announced the timetable had been pushed out.

Tuesday, April 13th 2010, 5:21AM 4 Comments

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