ob体育 has permanently banned Mrs Amanda Ritchie, a financial adviser and former authorised representative of Magnitude Group Pty Ltd (Magnitude), a subsidiary of Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac), from providing financial services.聽
ob体育's investigation found that between October 2009 and August 2014, Mrs Ritchie, of Shepparton in Victoria, had;
- falsely created documents including bank statements, emails and letters in order to deceive clients;
- engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in order to perpetuate the false documents on client accounts;
- transferred funds from clients' accounts without authorisation.
ob体育 Deputy Chairman Peter Kell said, 'The investing public needs to be able to trust those who provide financial services. ob体育 will act to ensure advisers who flout the law and who聽 disregard聽 their legal obligations are聽 removed from the financial services industry'.
Mrs Ritchie has a right of appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ob体育鈥檚 decision.
Background
Westpac reported its concerns regarding the conduct of Mrs Ritchie to ob体育 in December 2014.
Mrs Ritchie's employment was terminated by Westpac in August 2014.
Mrs Ritchie was an authorised representative of Magnitude from 19 February 2013 to 14 August 2014. Prior to this Mrs Ritchie was an authorised representative with M&S Services from 19 December 2003 to 18 February 2013.
Mrs Ritchie is the eighth person to be banned from the financial services industry as part of ob体育's Wealth Management Project, commenced in late 2014.
This project encompasses a number of investigations and proactive risk-based surveillances, with particular focus on compliance in large financial advice businesses.
Mrs Ritchie's banning follows ob体育 accepting enforceable undertakings from two Queensland financial advisers, Reid Menkens, a former Millennium3 Financial Services Pty Ltd and AMP Financial Planning Pty Ltd representative, and Leo Menkens, a former AMP representative. The pair trade as Menkens Financial Group in Brisbane, Queensland (refer ).
In March 2015, Australian Financial Planning Solutions Pty Ltd (AFPS), an authorised representative of Charter Financial Planning Limited, an Australian financial services (AFS) licensee and subsidiary of AMP Limited, paid $10,200 in penalties after ob体育 issued an infringement notice for making false or misleading representations (refer ).
聽Other banning actions taken by ob体育 include: Stuart Jamieson (refer ), Sharnie Kent (refer ), Martin Hodgetts (refer ), Shawn Hickman (refer ), Brett O'Malley (), Brian Farber (refer ) and Rebecca Locksley (refer ).
Members of the public can check the names of people who have been banned from giving financial advice by searching on within 'banned and disqualified' at www.asic.gov.au.
Editor's note:
Mrs Ritchie was employed by M&S Group, who dismissed her in August 2014 following Westpac's investigation.
Westpac initially reported concerns to ob体育 in August 2014, and finalised their investigation in December 2014 which was referred to ob体育.