Online Voting ends TODAY – Wednesday 21 October 2020 at 5pm Sydney time.

You may vote for 1 to 3 candidates. Please vote for me – Julie Matheson, BA (UWA), DipFP (Deakin) CFP® LRS® (FPA)

Here’s what I’m standing for… and why I want to represent you as a FPA Board Member for the next three years:

New Entrants

One issue facing the FPA is the lack of new entrants to the profession.

There is little or no succession planning for your business without young and enthusiastic advisers just like you when you joined the profession

The cost to serve your clients means you have little time to find new entrants and then train them in the Professional Year.

No one can really explain to a high school student how the financial system works and why it’s so complicated to give advice.

CFP® designation

Another issue for the FPA is maintaining Certified Financial Planner as the premier designation in Australia.

There are more than 190,000 CFPs in the world and the Australia Government has just taken a sledge hammer to the FPA’s role in education.

The FPA has the rights to CFP® designation since 1986 and has persisted with the CFP entry program which has not increased CFPs numbers in Australia since the peak of 5,736 in 2009*.

AFP® Designation

What to do with the AFP® designation now that FASEA has set the minimum education standard from 1 January 2020? The FPA needs to act with some urgency because some AFP®s have the same or more recognised education than the CFP® designation. I have a plan to discuss. Please click here>>>

Cost of Advice

And the biggest issue in the history of the FPA is the cost of advice and the 40 ++ steps involved in delivering advice without breaking the law.

I have written a whole page dedicated to the cost of advice. Click here to read more

CFP® program

I have a plan for the Certified Financial Planner program*

The CFP program needs a major overhaul to concentrate on the cost to serve clients and professional practice to encourage new entrants into the profession.

The existing program includes Code of Ethics which is not recognised by FASEA as a standalone unit. The two Strategy Units are top secret to the CFP® alumni and have not published any findings by students or content from the providers for peer review and stress testing.

The Investment Strategies unit is also top secret and not available to the CFP® alumni. It also hasn’t published any outstanding work by students and has not been peer reviewed by the CFP® profession as a whole.

Finally the CFP® certification unit is about building a Statement of Advice and delivering the advice to clients. However it doesn’t analyse the cost to provide the advice or back test previous advice to check if it complies with FOFA best interest duty.

Professional Partners

It’s now time the FPA cancels the Professional Partners* program as it is no longer required under the FASEA Code of Ethics*.

The program was introduced in 2010 after the FPA changed its constitution to be an individual member association and relinquished the Principal Membership category. Professional Partners were encouraged to fund the Financial Planning Education Council which was set up by the FPA in 2011*. All of this work has been over taken by FASEA legislation in 2019.

Suicide, red tape and limited liability

I will encourage the FPA Board to:

Have a respectful and discreet inquiry into the tragic circumstances surrounding 20+ adviser suicides*, support for their clients and families and to lobby for changes to laws that have the potential to cause a loss of life:

I am devastated to learn that my fellow colleagues have taken their life and I would like to know why so we can fix it. How do their clients feel? We don’t know. What has happened to their families? We don’t know but we do care.

Deploy part of the FPA’s $16million member funds to reduce red tape and the cost of advice (currently $3,000 or more per client/couple);

Implement self registration of Financial Planner/Advisers with ASIC;

Introduce a Professional Standards Limited Liability Scheme* for members recognised by government;

Establish a “CFP Board of Knowledge” where financial products and strategies are stress tested and peer reviewed; and

Facilitate direct communication between elected board members and members of the FPA for open and accountable decision making.

One message to Canberra

There must be one message to Canberra from all associations, adviser representative bodies and service providers to advisers. Read more here>>

Now…. it’s up to you to vote for me, Julie Matheson. Thank you.

* References:

FPA, Annual Report, 2009

FPA, Certified Financial Planner program, 2020

FPA, Annual Report, 2019

FPA, Professional Partners program, 2011

FASEA, Code of Ethics, 1 January 2020

IFA, Suicide and Broken Families: The true cost of advice reform, 1 August 2019

Law Society of Western Australia, Professional Standards Scheme, 2020