ob体育 has banned Thanh Huu Tran, a former authorised representative of Aon Hewitt Financial Advice Limited, from providing financial services for a period of two years. This follows an ob体育 surveillance which found that Mr Tran is not adequately trained or is not competent to provide financial services.
础厂滨颁鈥檚 surveillance focused on Mr Tran鈥檚 part in 2016 conduct by Futura Financial Group Pty Ltd (a company of which Mr Tran was a director) that resulted in 331 Aon Master Trust (AMT) default superannuation members not switching to an AMT MySuper product. The AMT MySuper product generally has lower fees and costs than AMT鈥檚 legacy default employer superannuation product, partly because MySuper products are prohibited from paying commissions to financial advisers.
础厂滨颁鈥檚 surveillance found:
- Futura sent letters to 424 clients聽stating that if they did not respond to the letter within 30 days their聽superannuation accrued default amount and future contributions would not聽go to a MySuper product.
- Following the issuing of the聽letter, Futura then sent an email and a text message to those clients for聽whom they had email and mobile phone contact details.
- Mr Tran then instructed a staff member to log in to the adviser portal of the AMT website to make聽investment choices on behalf of clients who did not respond to the letter, email or text message. Where Futura received an automated notification to indicate the message failed to deliver to the mobile or email, no changes were made to the relevant client鈥檚 account.
- As a聽result, 331 clients鈥� default superannuation balances and future聽contributions were invested in the AMT鈥檚 legacy default superannuation聽product, instead of transitioning to MySuper, even though the clients had聽not given their instructions for this to happen.
Mr Tran鈥檚 conduct effectively required the clients to 鈥榦pt-in鈥� to MySuper, even though the government had designed the MySuper system as an opt-out scheme.
Mr Tran has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of 础厂滨颁鈥檚 decision. The banning order for Mr Tran has been recorded on 础厂滨颁鈥檚 publicly available , which consumers can access to check the qualifications and credentials of financial advisers.
础厂滨颁鈥檚 has useful information for consumers on superannuation. The website also has information about what consumers can do if their .
Client remediation program
Aon Hewitt Financial Advice developed a remediation program for the 331 clients affected by the conduct. This resulted in approximately $366,000 compensation payable to affected clients.
Aon Hewitt also wrote to affected clients providing them with information about their existing super account and AMT MySuper, encouraging them to consider whether to stay in their existing account or transition to AMT MySuper, and offering financial advice to help clients decide. Of the minority of clients who responded to Aon Hewitt, most indicated they now wished to switch to MySuper. For the larger group of affected clients who did not respond, the current trustee of the AMT (Equity Trustees Ltd, which was not the trustee at the time of the 2016 conduct) has decided to take steps to now move these clients to MySuper.
Background
Mr Tran was an authorised representative of Aon Hewitt Financial Advice Ltd between 6 July 2011 and 26 November 2018. In 2016 Mr Tran was a director of Futura Financial Group Pty Ltd, which was a corporate authorised representative of AHFA between 29 January 2016 and 26 August 2019.