Over the years – over many years – I have delighted in baiting successive chief executives of various financial planning associations with the thought that if it’s possible for me to join their association then its barriers to entry are too low.
Last July, to my dismay, one avenue for such petty bastardy was closed off to me after the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) decreed that henceforth all new members would have to hold a tertiary degree in a relevant discipline.
Matthew Rowe, chair of the FPA, reminds me every opportunity he gets that membership of the association is well beyond me and people like me. I don’t know what he means by that but if I did know I’m certain I wouldn’t like it.
Joy
So imagine my joy this week when it was revealed that a Melbourne man recently faced court charged with alleged involvement in a $100 million fraud. This man is apparently a professional poker player. And he also described himself as a financial planner.
Which reminded me: not even really being a financial planner need not impede my potential career as one. There remains considerable scope for me to torment Rowe and other chairs and CEOs. I still need only complete my RG146 (I’m sure I can find a spare weekend) and find a willing, gullible or possibly just desperate licensee, and I, too, can call myself the same thing you call yourself.
That’s a joke, right? It’s beyond ridiculous that I can do that; and it’s a tragedy waiting to happen that so many members of the public apparently can’t tell the difference between you and what you do, and me and what I can’t do. They assume that if I just call myself a financial planner, I must be competent and qualified to be one.
An important point
This might sound flippant, but it shouldn’t mask an important point. All the professional standards in the world; all the continuing professional development you can do; a world-best code of conduct; and more legislation, regulation and rules than you can jump over all count for very little if I can still get into the system and subvert it – and I can, as that Melbourne man also allegedly did. So what needs to change?
That’s simple. There just has to be some way to stop me from calling myself a financial planner. To do that, you have to link the legal use of the term to something I can’t do, or something I can’t have – like membership of an association that has a structure designed to keep me out. So it has to have entry-level requirements that I do not have; it must demand significant ongoing education that is well beyond me; and it must enforce a code of practice that requires me to operate in a very highly ethical, clients’-interests-first way.
Even if, by some miracle, I could qualify to join, there than has to be a robust and meaningful way of making sure I continue to measure up, and a process for chucking me out when I don’t. And when I’m chucked out I should be legally prevented form representing myself to the public as a financial planner.
Finally, you’ve got to tell the public, loud and clear, that they should only use the services of someone who can legally call themselves a financial planner.
Not me; and not a $100 million fraudster.
