[Weekly Wrap] FMCA not far away

It's a matter of months until the Financial Markets Conduct Act comes into force and some advisers are still trying to work out what it will mean for their businesses.

Friday, November 22nd 2013, 2:28PM

by Susan Edmunds

The FMA is consulting on its proposals for licensing financial services providers under the act.

The biggest change for a lot of advisers will be around the DIMS requirements. There has been some debate recently over how many AFAs actually offer DIMS services. But anyone who offers class DIMS services will need a licence from April next year.

That will come with some other regulatory responsibilities and there may be some advisers who decide it's not worth being involved in that space any more.

Angus Dale-Jones pointed out that it's the first time that advisers will have come across a situation where the providers of a "class" service come in for more scrutiny than those offering a personalised service. But once they get their heads around the reversal, he says it should become clear to most whether it's worth their time going through the process.

Fund managers will also have to be licensed. Although it's expected the rules could make things a bit harder for start-ups, they don't look to be as strict as some were expecting.

Regulatory changes have affected almost every part of the industry. When KiwiSaver providers started to have to provide their quarterly disclosure statements last month, some questioned what that would do to the research houses who traditionally were the source of this sort of information.

We asked a couple of them and were told that it was largely business as usual. Although the new disclosure requirements might step on their toes a bit, they thought there would be ways to adapt and offer value in other ways.

In other news, there are still questions being asked about what will count as CPD under the new version of the code, and some say advisers' stock picking days are numbered.

In mortgage news, it's all been about mobile banking. Westpac is letting customers organise mortgage top-ups with their phones, and Kiwibank is the latest to offer a home loan preapproval via app.

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