The role of FAPs in building consumer confidence

An industry panel shared its thoughts with advisers at this year’s Financial Services Council conference.

FMA director of deposit taking, insurance & advice Michael Hewes says there are now 1407 FAPs, with around 40 new licences processing at any one time, showing there is still a demand from people to enter the industry.

He says FMA expects to do 60 to 70 monitoring visits by March next year and will release a monitoring report highlighting observations from that process.

“At this stage monitoring is very much focused on where we get complaints and recidivist offenders. Overall, it’s been a very collegial and collaborative approach with industry.”