Proposed FAA changes not a great shock: Goldsmith

Commerce Minister Paul Goldsmith told the Financial Markets Law conference this week that the paper will outline proposals for changes to the act.

He hopes to introduce a bill to Parliament early next year and have the changes passed before the general election later that year.

He says the current act made "some improvements but wasn’t perfect" and it was "expensive and confusing for consumers in terms of who is what and it is not consistent around disclosure requirements and is not enabling for roboadvice.”

While he isn't giving away what changes are being proposed the "new landscape won't be a great shock."

The revised act will be "more consistent around disclosure, more simple more enabling of conversations and new technology.

He described the review as a "slow, careful process." Once the paper is approved by Cabinet an exposure draft of the the law will be developed which may may "flush out a few more kinks or complications."

After that the new bill will be introduced to Parliament early next year and hopefully passed later in the year.

Goldsmith said the new FAA should be "better, more efficient and enables more New Zealanders to get access to useful financial advice."

Comments from our readers

On 2 July 2016 at 12:40 pm Murray Weatherston said:

Minister Goldsmith is to be congratulated for proceeding at record speed.
To know on 29 June that he will be presenting to Cabinet the following week a paper implementing MBIE's FAAR paper (or parts thereof) that he is not due to receive until 1 July is truly remarkable.
I hope he will be as fast in tabling the MBIE Report in the House in the coming week, so we can all see where MBIE got to in its Review conclusions.

On 4 July 2016 at 10:58 am blogger billy said:

Dear Mr Goldsmith

If you really want the interests of the NZ public to come first, then you will need to fix the revolving doors problem.

currently in NZ revolving doors means;

light regulatory hand for the banks

heavy regulatory hand for non aligned AFA’s

For guidance you can call Elizabeth Warren in the USA - she is on to it

And thanks to Brett Sheather for raising this issue.

Proposed FAA changes not a great shock: Goldsmith

Minister of Commerce Paul Goldsmith is taking a paper on the review of the Financial Advisers Act to cabinet later next week and changes are likely to be revealed later this month.

Friday, July 1st 2016, 6:00AM 2 Comments

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