- BTFG Promotes Ethics With Advisers
- FPA Offers Pro-Bono Advice to Cancer Sufferers
BTFG Promotes Ethics With Advisers
BT Financial Group (BTFG) will put is advisers and senior staff members through an ethics program designed for financial services professionals with the first batch of 500 to finish the course by 30 June 2017.
The move builds on BTFG’s current requirement, in place since early 2016, for all new advisers to undertake the Ethical Professional Program offered by The Ethics Centre in Sydney.
The program has 19 hours of learning spread over four to six weeks and provides tools for consistent decisions that reduce compliance burdens, and also offers continuing professional development points from FPA, AFA, SMSA Association.
BTFG General Manager, Advice, Mark Spiers said the program sought to formalise ethical awareness, education and training within the business stating that “as an industry we have to get ethics and behaviour right so we can shape and lift the culture across the advice industry”.
“This is a strong step towards formalising where the industry is going ahead of the new professional standards due in 2019. Not only will the program support our advisers, but importantly it will help to lift consumer trust in the value of advice and their confidence in financial advice as a noble profession,” Spiers said.
FPA Offers Pro-Bono Advice to Cancer Sufferers
Members of the FPA will offer free financial advice to families affected by cancer under a referral service offered through the Cancer Council.
The pro bono financial planning referral service will be offered nationally under a pilot scheme with the FPA calling on CFP and Associate members of the Association to offer their services under the program.
The pilot will be initially focused on regional areas where there are no advisers to provide assistance, which would include early access to superannuation and attached insurance benefits, developing strategies for investing lump sum insurance payouts.
Advisers may also be called upon to provide advice on accessing Centrelink benefits, developing a budget and planning for the financial future of their family.
FPA Chief Executive, Dante De Gori said the estimated average cost of a cancer diagnosis was around $50,000 and many people were unable to pay for advice at that time.
“Financial planners can make a huge difference to families in need of assistance. To continue the good work Cancer Council are doing, we need more financial planners to become involved,” De Gori said.
