Richard Dahl is a huge fan of educational requirements for advisers.
Educational obligations help raise the standards of advisers and the quality of advice given, while adding long-overdue gravitas to an industry that was once the domain of insurance salesmen, Dahl says.
“The educational qualifications can only be good for consumers,” says Dahl, who is not without a considerable array of letters after his name. “I think it is a good journey to go on.”
Despite his praise for educational requirements, he is also concerned about where the new educational standards will take the industry.
“We are now at a juncture with FASEA [the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority] where someone like myself may consider what to do because even someone like myself may not fit the framework,” he notes.
FASEA has announced that all advisers will need to meet its proposed education standards by January 1, 2024 – and many are facing extra study despite having degrees and master qualifications.
Dahl is a case in point.
The director of FMD Financial in Adelaide and chairman of the FMD investment committee has a bachelor’s degree in applied science, a graduate diploma in applied finance and investment, and a diploma of financial planning.
He is a self-managed super fund specialist, a certified financial planner, and a fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
He has also completed his Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) qualification and has more than two decades as a planner behind him. Before joining the industry, he was a research scientist at RMIT University in Melbourne.
“We have put a lot of investment and energy into being renowned for our better investment portfolios for clients, ones that are resilient, that is what our focus is on,” Dahl says. “CIMA has an investment focus – there is the study of portfolio construction, behavioural science – but it doesn’t fit into the FASEA matrix.”
Dahl says the education reforms may lead him to stop seeing clients.
“Would I do further study? Well I have done recent study with CIMA, which was great, to skill up. I wouldn’t be against doing some of it, but not sure if I have the time to devote a couple of years to it,” he says. “I do, however, chair an investment committee, that is part of my role, and provide advice at a more sophisticated level to foundations and entities so there are parts of the business where I will be able to continue applying those investment skills, rather than one-on-one investment advice.”
Dahl is able to parlay his skills into other areas, but cautions that not all advisers are in the same boat. It will be a loss to the industry if these seasoned hands leave, he says, and an even bigger loss for clients.
“You lose that experience. Then clients are going to miss out on those adviser relationships,” he says. “Clients also benefit from the fact that many advisers have come from other industries.”
Dahl is hopeful there won’t be a mass exodus of advisers but is realistic about what many advisers will choose to do.
“At the moment, people are scared, and a lot of advisers are thinking of their future,” he says. “You wouldn’t want that experience to disappear. And a lot of these people are tertiary qualified, they have done a diploma of financial planning, they have done their CFP and CIMA, but if it doesn’t fit the specific framework of FASEA, they’re wondering what they will do.
“With the educational standards in the current format, there are going to be a lot of people exiting.”
The impact on businesses may be considerable, too.
“I think businesses will find it difficult to keep going,” Dahl says. “They will have to get busy with succession planning.”
| Name of firm: FMD Financial
Name of licensee (if not self-licensed): Paragem Time in the industry (previous jobs?): 29 years in industry; started in 1989 as an actuarial analyst with Mercer in Melbourne, progressed to become an investment consultant, research manager, financial adviser, chair of the Mercer Financial Planning investment committee; moved back to Adelaide in 1997 to head up Mercer’s financial planning practice, and left Mercer in 2004 to establish FMD Financial (Adelaide), part of the national FMD Group of companies. Academic qualifications: bachelor of applied science; graduate diploma in applied finance and investment; diploma of financial planning Accreditations: CIMA, SMSF specialist, CFP, FINSIA fellow Professional association memberships: IMCA/CIMA Society of Australia, Financial Planning Association, SMSF Association Other memberships: Rotary Club of Adelaide |
