Thoughts on adviser associations getting together

Friday, October 28th 2005, 10:36PM 1 Comment

FPIA interim chief executive Ross Butler must be a tough man.

As reported on Good Returns this week he has opened discussions with other bodies representing advisers about joining together.
While he wouldn't name names, one could hazard a guess that the NZ Mortgage Brokers Association would be somewhere near the top of the list.

It is like-minded in wanting to set standards, ethics etc for its members, it has a ceo, and its membership has grown well in recent years.

Plus Ross has been heavily involved in the home loan industry as a director of broking group Mortgage Link.

But one wonders how welcome his advances will be. Anyone knowing a bit of history about this industry will know that "get togethers" (Ross didn't want to call it a takeover or merger) are fraught with difficulty and politics. Think back to the creation of the FPIA and moves by fund managers and the likes to get together.

The feedback I have had from NZMBA (unofficially) is marriage isn't on the cards. I guess we will see how good Ross's flirting and dating skills are!

Thinking about the whys and wherefores, I'll be interested to learn the logic behind Ross's move.

And I'll happily (if somewhat guardedly) throw in this thought.

Under the model proposed by the Task Force on adviser regulation, proper advisers would have to join an Approved Professional Body. It seems to me that instead of one super-APB, that there are more likely to be a raft of smaller, specialised ones which cater to individual disciplines, eg: mortgage broking, sharebroking, investment advice, financial planning and life insurance.

Yes, I have said separate ones for financial planning and life insurance.

This raises the question is it better to try and join up the various associations into one body, or is it better to put the efforts into keeping the various disciplines already together in one organisation together as one?

Then there is the question of competition. Maybe there are others out there who want to establish alternative APBs to the FPIA?
For my money the sleeper in the crowd is the Professional Advisers Association (PAA).

There you go plenty of thoughts on the matter. To close nothing could be more fitting than "Watch this space".

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Comments from our readers

On 12 November 2005 at 1:26 am Atkins said:

Phil, do you think one super-APB would work if it operated like a Company with various products, and you have 1 CEO, with a separate general managers for each of the product areas ?

Would that not be more sensible rather than having a raft of smaller specialised bodies?

It seems to me that the members need to get a return on their investment, and there are synergies in place if you all have the same administrative systems.