ASIC has banned financial adviser, Peter Jianchao Xu, from providing financial services for five years following a surveillance of Xu’s advice.
The Perth adviser was an authorised representative of Westpac Banking Corporation, Commonwealth Financial Planning Limited and most recently, Neo Financial Solutions.
After reviewing a sample of Xu’s advice files, ASIC found that he had failed to comply with financial services laws including the best interests duty and the requirement to provide appropriate advice.
The regulator found that Xu repeatedly recommended clients take out a new insurance policy instead of exploring whether it would be beneficial if they remained with or modified their existing policies.
ASIC also found an ongoing failure by Xu to consider his clients’ personal circumstances when providing personal insurance advice. As a result, Xu’s recommendations are likely to have exposed his clients to the risk of being under-insured.
It stated that financial advisers must take their clients’ personal circumstances into account when providing personal advice and adequately consider any existing financial products as well as new products before making product-switching recommendations.
The banning of Xu will be recorded on ASIC’s publicly available Financial Advisers Register and the Banned and Disqualified Persons Register. Xu has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
Last week, another Perth adviser was also banned by ASIC (see: ASIC Bans Perth Adviser…).
