[The Wrap] Three very different tales of associations

It's been a pretty full on week with one association running an excellent conference, another failing, again, to get a quorum and a third looking for a new board.

Friday, September 7th 2018, 6:07PM

We're pretty lucky in New Zealand as the financial services industry has two open and articulate regulators at the moment.

Both FMA chief executive Rob Everett and Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr demonstrated this at the Financial Services Council conference over the past two days. This morning Orr made his first. on-the-record speech as governor, but didn't read one single word of the written speech. Rather the audience of fund managers, life insurance people and other industry participants were treated to an entertaining presentation.

Orr had a few key messages, but when it comes to the financial services industry the theme was around too much short term focus.

Everett's message was around conduct and trust. Indeed he went as far to say that there is little trust in the financial services industry at the moment.

Many Good Returns' readers will find his comments (you can read them here) refreshing.

We often hear about the industry players being customer-centric and, arguably, some talk the talk, but maybe don't walk it. That has to change, is the simple message.

Everett even went on to suggest shareholders were being looked after at customers' expense. Again it's a theme others have talked about, that too many people make too much money in our industry.

I do wonder what any sharemarket analyst would make of these comments and whether they have any impact on future earnings potential?

Another comment which piqued my interest is that some of the disconnection between customer and provider has come about thanks to technology. It does make you wonder what that means for robo-advice and asks the question about why is it being hurriedly pushed into law?

While the FSC conference was a success, it's somewhat ironic that the Professional Advisers Association, again, failed to get a quorum to its wind-up meeting.

Its successor, Financial Advice NZ, is currently in the process of electing its first full board. My view on this is that it's absolutely critical that people with the right skills are elected to this governance role. The success or failure of the organisation relies on getting it right. It's not a beauty pagent or an elect you mate exercise.

Nine advisers are contesting four practitioner positions on the board.

Tags: Foundation Life