Jonathan Beale
Jonathan Beale
“These new regulations put much more emphasis on the customer – things like better record keeping, due diligence and more work by advisers to ensure they can give the correct advice.
"Overall, we support the new regime,” Beale says.
“The focus on the customer is the key thing – I’ve been in financial services a long time and was trained in the early 90s when the customer really was our number one priority.
“While you may have a number of great products … the first thing is giving the correct advice with the product second so you are matching that advice to what the customer actually wants.”
Beale says lifting the bar for the quality of advisers is also a key point of the legislation.
“If you look at the previous regime there were a lot of grey areas and I think what we are seeing now is a clear distinction that will help customers – are they getting advice or information – so it’s a lot clearer and is a nice simple message which has been done really well.”
He says the new regulations will drive change for companies around what advice advisers are giving out and who to.
“We can already see this happening in some of the banks, for example BNZ’s partnership with Partners Life, [this] will help advisers move back to a core focus around what core skills and competencies they offer – moving away from a generalist form to much more specific advice.
“It’s also about finding people you enjoy working with … working through different channels rather than just yourself.
“It’s definitely an opportunity over the next year to 18 months – that could be a bit disruptive – but we want this to lead to better customer outcomes and for companies to look at their current models about how and what advice they provide to their customers.”
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