The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has permanently banned a former financial adviser for dishonesty and has fined an Australian Financial Services Licence holder over potentially misleading claims around the independence of advice.ASIC banned Troy Andrew Rodney Williams, of Sandy Bay, Hobart after an investigation found that in the period from December 2003 to March 2015 he acted dishonestly by providing Financial Services Guides (FSG) to clients that contained false statements in relation to his qualifications. The FSGs falsely stated that Williams held a Diploma of Financial Planning and he had completed certain courses related to that diploma.
ASIC also found that in December 2014, Williams had dishonestly created false certificates purportedly evidencing his qualifications and sent them to his licensee, Financial Services Partners (FSP) which then suspended his authority to provide advice on 10 March 2015 before cancelling it on 20 April 2015.
At the time of the investigation Williams was a director and financial adviser at Hobart financial planning business, Directions Wealth Management, which operated as part of the FSP group, which is a subsidiary of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ).
Williams has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
In related news, ASIC has fined Findex Group Limited (FGL) and Financial Index Australia (FIA) with a $10,800 penalty each after it issued the groups with infringement notices for potentially misleading claims on the Findex website.
FGL and FIA are a part of the Findex group of companies and ASIC stated that between August 2015 and December 2015, FIA published several representations on the Findex website referring to services provided by the Findex group as being ‘independent’ and/or ‘non-aligned’.
The regulator said that statements on the Findex website which lead to concerns included representations that Financial Index Wealth Accountants – another corporate member of the Findex group – was a leading independent provider of retail financial planning, accounting and wealth management services and the Findex group was ‘Australia’s largest independent financial advice company’.
ASIC stated the use of ‘independent’ and ‘non-aligned’ may have led consumers to believe services offered by the Findex group were not affected by any conflict of interest.
Rather, ASIC stated services offered were likely to have been affected by commissions or benefits received from an issuer of recommended financial products; and were likely to have been affected by conflicts of interest arising out of the group’s associations or relationships with issuers of financial products.
As a result of these concerns, ASIC issued an infringement notice to FGL for making the statements on behalf of the Findex Group, and a separate notice to FIA as the registered owner of the Findex website. The two groups responded to ASIC’s concerns by removing the statements from the website by December 2015.
