FSC and WSNZ told to grab opportunity

Workplace Savings (WSNZ) and the Financial Services Council (FSC) have the perfect chance to work together to provide a better representative body for the financial services sector, a WSNZ councillor says.

Monday, February 22nd 2016, 5:59AM

by Susan Edmunds

WSNZ is looking for a chief executive to replace Bruce Kerr, who resigned.

The FSC last week announced that its chief executive, Peter Neilson, had been made redundant as it worked on restructuring.

WSNZ councillor David Boyle said he had hoped that, with the FSC going through a period of change and WSNZ looking for a new CEO, the two organisations might have been able to work together. Kerr had remained in his role longer than originally intended in case of any potential merger or other changes to the groups' structures.

Boyle said: “There’s a chance that from the fire came a phoenix of a new organisation that was representative as one group, with a far greater voice. I genuinely think it was a brilliant opportunity to get an aligned industry voice. I can’t think of a better time to do it.”

He said insurance companies were not very interested in joining in with that sort of representation at present. But regulatory change could mean they would end up with a lot of the same issues to contend with, if insurance products started to be treated in the same way as category one products.

Informal discussions had started about an alternative body to replace the FSC for insurers who distribute via independent advisers.

But the is believed to now be on reviving the FSC.

Tags: FSC workplace savings nz