Former RFA pledges to stop advising

He came to the authority's attention in March 2011, when, trading as Financial Vision, he was registered on the Financial Service Providers Register to provide wholesale or generic financial advice services.

He was a registered financial adviser but the FMA was concerned that he was operating as an authorised financial adviser without authorisation, and his conduct was in breach of the Financial Advisers Act.

Duff accepted that he was not allowed to continue and in 2014 sold his client base to advice firm Newton Ross.

Last year, Financial Vision was put into liquidation and Duff deregistered from the FSPR.

He has agreed not to provide advice, deal with client investments., receive client money or serve as a director of any company involved in the provision of financial services or investments.

The FMA has accepted 22 enforceable undertakings since 2005, which can be enforced by a court if necessary.

Comments from our readers

On 15 April 2016 at 9:10 am John Milner said:

Well that throws cold water on SIFA's recent argument of "why fix it when it's not broken". I believe there are plenty more where that came from. Hard to believe but true.

Regulation and mandated minimum education standards may not rid the industry completely of problem advisers but it will certainly go along way in getting there. I have seen many examples of best practices being lifted across the country. Albeit under duress for some. As a whole for the industry this has got to be good, looking through the eyes of the client. I find it incredibly difficult to take any adviser seriously who does not embrace change and strives to be the very best for their
clients. I still come across advisers that are operating at a satisfactory level of 20 years ago.

On 18 April 2016 at 1:08 pm Murray Weatherston said:

Let's assume there are 5,000 RFAs.
One former RFA has now given an enforceable undertaking in the subject case.
That's 2/100ths of 1 per cent of the total number of RFAs.
In my book, that by itself is not a sufficient reason for regulating all RFAs.

On 18 April 2016 at 3:08 pm w k said:

@murray: that's a fine example of job creation. otherwise there's nothing else to do. it's either winz or us. i would have preferred winz - the cost of maintaining them is spread over 3m tax payers instead of 5,000 rfas. just my thoughts.

On 19 April 2016 at 1:23 pm RWAW said:

I have been reading the various posts regarding RFA's vs AFA's and there supposed standards. I would just like to say that being educated does not and never will guarantee integrity. When you look at the examples of disgraceful conduct and unethical practises there is I suggest one common denominator, the perpetrators in question are just plain dishonest. If the FMA thinks that education is going to somehow turn a dishonest person into an honest person then they are sadly mistaken.

Former RFA pledges to stop advising

A former registered financial adviser has signed an enforceable undertaking with the Financial Markets Authority, promising not to offer any financial advice for the next five years.

Thursday, April 14th 2016, 3:12PM 4 Comments

Comments from our readers

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