ob体育 has banned Mr Anthony Bishop of Chelmer, Queensland, from providing financial services for eight years.
ob体育 found that during the period between July 2010 to April 2014, when he was an employee representative of Westpac Financial Consultants Ltd (which is a part of the Westpac Banking Corporation), Mr Bishop was involved in the provision of inappropriate advice to clients and also involved in the failure to provide one client with a written statement of advice.
ob体育 found that Mr Bishop implemented a 'one size fits all' advice strategy that
- did not tailor advice to clients' personal and financial circumstances; and
- led to clients being over insured with inappropriate level of premiums.
ob体育 also found Mr Bishop to
- have made one misrepresentation concerning tax savings; and
- not be competent to provide financial services.
ob体育 Deputy Chair Peter Kell said, 'Advice needs to be tailored to the client's needs and circumstances, and an advice provider must not lose sight of the needs of their client.'
Mr Bishop's behavior was reported to ob体育 in May 2014.
A customer remediation process was undertaken and 29 former clients were paid a total of $1,127,543 made up of advice fees, refunds of premiums for inappropriate advice and market loss relating to investments.
Mr Bishop has applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) for review of ob体育's decision.
Background
This outcome is a result of ob体育's Wealth Management Project. The Wealth Management Project was established in October 2014 with the objective of lifting standards by major financial advice providers. The Wealth Management Project focuses on the conduct of the largest financial advice firms (NAB, Westpac, CBA, ANZ, AMP and Macquarie).
ob体育's work in the Wealth Management Project covers a number of areas including:
- Working with the largest financial advice firms to address the identification and remediation of non-compliant advice; and
- Seeking regulatory outcomes, when appropriate, against licensees and advisers.
As part of its Wealth Management Project, ob体育 has banned the following advisers from the financial services industry, in addition to Mr Bishop:
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Rommel Panganiban (16-0309MR)
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Anthony Jason Sourris ()
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Sarah Kate Gardner ()
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Nicholas Kerr ()
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Craig Scott Miller ()
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Wayne Meadth ()
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Hardik Bhimani (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Gerard McCormack (overturned on appeal: 16-448MR)
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Shane Thompson (refer:)
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Ben Rickman (refer:)
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Ben Cheung (refer:)
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Mark Tidbury (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Amanda Ritchie (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Stuart Murray Jamieson (refer:)
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Sharnie Kent (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Alfie Chong (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Martin Hodgetts (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Shawn Hickman (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Brett O'Malley (refer: )
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Brian Farber (refer: ), and
- 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽Rebecca Locksley (refer: ).
Editor's note:
This media release was updated on 20 December 2016 following notification聽that Mr Bishop has applied to the AAT for review of ob体育's decision.
Editor's note 2:
On 22 June 2017 the AAT advised ob体育 that it had received written notification from Mr Bishop that he wanted to withdraw his review application. As a result, Mr Bishop's application for a review of ob体育's decision was dismissed by the AAT with an effective date of 22 June 2017.