September 30, 2009

FINANCIAL planners have had a terrible 12 months, blamed for investment strategies that went bad in a financial crisis neither they (nor anybody else) saw coming, incurring emnity that better belongs to the incompetent or unethical advisers who peddled products in their own, rather than their clients', interest.

That the industry's image needs work is a given, and one way to do is to improve their qualifications, an idea that is getting attention from the parliamentary committee inquiring into financial products and services, chaired by Labor MP Bernie Ripoll.As committee member Brett Mason put it last month, the advice that financial advisers give "could be more important than the advice a lawyer, an accountant, a plumber or an electrician ever gives. And yet the training and the requirements involved are so much lower."