Submissions close on code draft

Submissions closed yesterday on the revised draft of the Code of Professional Conduct for Authorised Financial Advisers but the committee chairman isn’t expecting big changes.

Friday, October 25th 2013, 6:02AM

by Susan Edmunds

The revised draft was issued earlier in the month after extensive public consultation.

It includes changes designed to increase the importance of code standard one, which requires advisers to put clients’ interests first, and moves to allow AFAs who have not completed investment qualifications to advise on KiwiSaver’s first-home withdrawal option.

Code committee chairman David Ireland said there had been about 10 submissions in response to the revised code. Most had been informal but a couple were more detailed submissions.

He said the committee would take them on board and reflect on the feedback. The committee had also been monitoring industry feedback via news media, he said.

The committee would meet in a couple of weeks to determine whether it was in a position to release the new version of the code. “I wouldn’t expect it to change very much at this stage. There have been two rounds of consultation now.”

Large-scale changes could prompt another round of consultation, which was best avoided, he said. “But having said that, if something significant comes up, we will need to look at that and would have to address it one way or another. My expectation would be that there will be tweaks on a couple of bits and then that would be it.”

The level of engagement with the proposed changes had been good, he said.

Feedback from the industry has been generally positive about the latest draft, although there were some questions raised about the exclusion from structured CPD of training that was designed purely to help the adviser sell a product.

Ireland said the committee should be in a position to release a final version of the new code later in November.

« Triplejump eyes global expansion

IFA working on pro-bono offering »

Special Offers