FMA confirms mystery shopping plans

The FMA has confirmed it plans to use mystery shopping as part of its role of regulating the financial advice industry, although it is tight-lipped over how and when it will be conducted and on what parts of the industry.

"This is what we can say about mystery shopping: we intend to use mystery shopping from time to time; mystery shopping is used by regulators around the world; we're not doing it at present," FMA spokesman Nick Stride said.

IFA president Nigel Tate said the institute had been in discussions with the FMA about how to conduct mystery shopping.

He said the institute's recommendations were in line with those of Dr Michael Mintrom of Auckland University, who assessed the high-profile mystery shopping survey of financial advisers by Consumer NZ in 2009, and found a number of problems with the way it was conducted.