IFA trains up bank staff

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The Institute of Financial Advisers (IFA) is to provide Westpac’s AFA staff with training in a move IFA chief executive Peter Lee says will benefit the whole advisory sector.

Wednesday, December 7th 2011, 6:43AM 7 Comments

by Benn Bathgate

He said around 15% of the IFA's membership was comprised of bank staff, and that the Institute had been in talks with Westpac over offering tailored, monthly online professional development training for some time.

Lee dismissed concerns that IFA would in effect be up-skilling advisers' competition.

"Any time you add a new adviser to the pool you could argue that's competition, the fact is the bank staff are there already," he said.

"The sort of clients that'll go along to see their bank adviser could well be different to the sort of client that'll go along and see Joe Bloggs Financial Advice Ltd, they'll compete differently, they'll have different sorts of clients, they get them in different ways, obviously competition will occur but in the end it's different sorts of clients."

He also argued that there was a shortage of advisers in the market in the wake of the new adviser regulations, and that the initiative was playing an important role in training the non-aligned advisers of the future.

"People are always saying who's going to provide the advice tomorrow? Who's going to train them up? Joe Bloggs Financial Advice doesn't have the skills or resources or time to do that, they need people to hit the ground running, so where is our profession going to get the people for tomorrow? The bank's is an obvious place."

Lee also said the differing remuneration structures between non-aligned and bank advisers attracted different types of people to the role, which therefore drew different types of client.

"I see them as complementary rather than competitive, they each fill a niche or a different need and from that perspective it can only be good to have more people trained up to a higher level."

The Westpac head of private banking, Richard Jarrett, also welcomed the link-up between the bank and the IFA.

"We are now in a more regulated marketplace with improved compliance standards and we need to ensure our advisers are well supported and continue to grow in skill and knowledge to deliver advice with confidence," he said.

Benn Bathgate is a business reporter for ASSET and Good Returns, email story ideas to benn@goodreturns.co.nz

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