People behind FAA review changing

Advisers say the faces they deal with at MBIE keep changing and it is raising concerns about how well equipped they are to handle the Financial Advisers Act review.

Friday, June 26th 2015, 6:00AM

by Susan Edmunds

One adviser, who did not want to be named, said he had serious concerns about the rate of staff turnover.

James Campbell, believed to be responsible for writing much of the issues paper for the review, has gone to Melbourne.

Senior policy adviser Daniel Twaddle, who was regarded as having a good grasp of advisers’ concerns, has also left MBIE. He spent time in two adviser businesses, including Michael Dowling's Stratus Financial Services and John Killick's Fox Plan in Wellington.

Robert Oddy, president of SiFA, said: "It is disappointing to have lost the original MBIE folk who seemed to gain improved financial literacy as a result of the several meetings with the many stakeholders particpating in the review of the Acts. In my humble opinion, continuity can be beneficial in terms of outcomes - and particularly when applying lateral thinking to develop methods of improving outcomes for consumers and other stakeholders. Hopefully, the replacements will be well equiped to identify the advantages and disadvantages - or benefits, risks, and suitability - of the options prepared for the Minister."

MBIE manager of corporate law Iain Southall said the reason advisers felt there was a high level of turnover was that there were a number of people involved in the review.

"We've decided it is quite a high priority for us and we are having to throw a reasonable amount of resource at it."

He said there were a number of different stakeholders to get around, including adviser associations, consumer representatives, lawyers and QFEs.

"We're trying to be pragmatic with who can go to some of these things... for the financial adviser community, this is their thing, they care about this a lot. I've got a few things to be going on and that's just the way it is, I can't be absolutely everywhere."

He said notes taken at each meeting were collated centrally.

All MBIE staff at consultation meetings were part of the team and aware of the issues involved in the Financial Advisers Act. But Southall said it was valuable to hear from the adviser community to illustrate how it was working in practice."We can give our staff a bit of experience on the policy side of things, they can see what the legislation says, bu tgetting out talking to people puts it a bit in perspective."

An MBIE spokeswoman said advisers could contact Southall or the review team at faareview@mbie.govt.nz if they had any feedback they wanted to offer outside the consultation meetings.

Tags: MoBIE