IFA trains up bank staff

The Institute of Financial Advisers (IFA) is to provide Westpac’s AFA staff with training in a move IFA chief executive Peter Lee says will benefit the whole advisory sector.

Wednesday, December 7th 2011, 6:43AM 7 Comments

by Benn Bathgate

He said around 15% of the IFA's membership was comprised of bank staff, and that the Institute had been in talks with Westpac over offering tailored, monthly online professional development training for some time.

Lee dismissed concerns that IFA would in effect be up-skilling advisers' competition.

"Any time you add a new adviser to the pool you could argue that's competition, the fact is the bank staff are there already," he said.

"The sort of clients that'll go along to see their bank adviser could well be different to the sort of client that'll go along and see Joe Bloggs Financial Advice Ltd, they'll compete differently, they'll have different sorts of clients, they get them in different ways, obviously competition will occur but in the end it's different sorts of clients."

He also argued that there was a shortage of advisers in the market in the wake of the new adviser regulations, and that the initiative was playing an important role in training the non-aligned advisers of the future.

"People are always saying who's going to provide the advice tomorrow? Who's going to train them up? Joe Bloggs Financial Advice doesn't have the skills or resources or time to do that, they need people to hit the ground running, so where is our profession going to get the people for tomorrow? The bank's is an obvious place."

Lee also said the differing remuneration structures between non-aligned and bank advisers attracted different types of people to the role, which therefore drew different types of client.

"I see them as complementary rather than competitive, they each fill a niche or a different need and from that perspective it can only be good to have more people trained up to a higher level."

The Westpac head of private banking, Richard Jarrett, also welcomed the link-up between the bank and the IFA.

"We are now in a more regulated marketplace with improved compliance standards and we need to ensure our advisers are well supported and continue to grow in skill and knowledge to deliver advice with confidence," he said.

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

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Comments from our readers

On 7 December 2011 at 5:19 pm Jon said:
The Good News is that if the IFA is training them then they will probably be no good anyway.
On 8 December 2011 at 10:21 am Barry Milner said:
Why on earth would the IFA go down this path, it's like the chooks offering to educate the fox on predator behavior. Not a good idea.
On 8 December 2011 at 4:06 pm w k said:
there's no free lunch mate. and the hidden agenda is?
On 8 December 2011 at 9:56 pm Anon said:
What you have is a sizable contributor to IFA in terms of membership fees. Plus last I heard they were the only bank with ATO (Approved Training Organisation) status.
So it makes sense to support.
Don't worry about it being competitive to true AFA advisers, they will still be QFE robots.
On 9 December 2011 at 8:43 am Dave said:
@Anon - the banks probably have the best training grounds for new advisers out there, so hardly robots. Also the 'individual authorisation' of AFAs means that they can't blindly follow instructions. I would be interested to see the make up of any training program and how it would benefit retail clients...may all be smoke and mirror attempt at looking good to the regulator maybe??
On 9 December 2011 at 4:42 pm Anthony said:
More regulation, more professional development and more qualified Advisers can only be beneficial for Kiwis!

Ta ta to the Cowboy Advisers!

And well done to Westpac, hope to see the other Banks follow.
On 9 December 2011 at 6:48 pm John said:
Bit strange having an ATO Westpac contract an organisation that's not an ATO, the IFA, to run training.

Can someone direct me to a training program the IFA runs that's available to it's members?
Commenting is closed

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