“Professionalism and lifting the standards is one of those things. The challenge for the FPA is not to become too fragmented and try to do too many things. It just needs to do a handful of things really well. From what I’ve seen so far of the FPA ‘new era’, I think that’s what they intend to do.
“[It’s] a great problem when you’ve got a large number of members [and] you can’t meet all of the members’ needs all of the time; so the challenge is to find out what the key needs are, focusing on those and communicating that strategy back to the membership base.
“For Mark Rantall, as the CEO, his challenge is going to be to make sure that communication is clear and consistent.”
The FPA overhaul seems to be the final kick that will bring all members of the financial planning community together and Roan is optimistic that the message will be received.
“I think this could be our only chance to get it right,” he says.
“Over the years, our industry has always been a mixture of everyone – people with their own agendas and points of views – and sometimes those points of views have not been in sync with the FPA.
“As per the new logo, it’s now black and white who the FPA are and who they are representing going forward. To put it in another way: a line in the sand has now been drawn. This is a chance to promote and convey that we finally have a professional organisation that will represent the interests of the members who are the financial planning professionals.”
Members have the option of voting electronically from April 1-7 or at the Extraordinary General Meeting on April 7.
The FPA’s presentation inspired those who attended the national conference, so it is now a waiting game to see whether it will gain consen- sus from its member base for these proposed changes.
Says Batchelor: “If I had to vote today, I’d vote against it.
“I can’t speak on behalf of the industry at large, but in speaking to my peers, I think the answer is much the same as mine – if they had to vote today, they would probably be against it. [Although], it’s not time for knee-jerk reactions, and the financial planning profession needs to be united and moving forward, not fragmented.”
