Delays in regulation OK

Sunday, January 21st 2007, 9:54PM

It was very pleasing to hear from the Ministry of Economic Development last week that it was combining a lot of its financial sector reform work into one package.

I could never understand why it kicked off the adviser regulation taskforce, then started the review of financial products as a seperate piece of work.

To me it always felt like it adviser regulations were started in haste, then there was some catch up with all this other work.
The key upshot of the announcement is that adviser regulation, and the start of Approved Professional Bodies (APB), is going to be longer in the making than originally planned.

It now looks like APBs are unlikely to start before 2009 - if at all.

In some ways I think that is OK - there isn't a catastrophic failure which requires fixing. Indeed I struggle to see there is a major consumer problem. The biggest problem is that not enough consumers seek financial advice!

Also I'm not convinced the associations are ready yet.

The risk with the delay though is that these changes could never see the light of day. Being pushed out lessens their imperative from a political stance (you may recall the former Commerce Minister Margaret Wilson, who kicked off the changes, put quite a high priority on them). And if there is a change of government next year then who knows what will happen?

While there is a delay in the implementation of these changes, there are others which are happening this year.

Advisers need to be aware that the Securities Legislation Act comes into force in 2007 and this piece of legislation will force advisers to change the way they operate.

One of the good things is that the Securities Commission is preparing a guidelines booklet, (which I understand will be at least 70 pages long!)

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