Influential governance roles are up for grabs in the regulatory sector with both the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and the new adviser code committee seeking fresh talent.
The FMA has advertised for two new board members covering the respective angles of consumers and the banking/insurance sectors.
Currently, the FMA lists eight board members (including an observer-only ‘future director’) with one, Vanessa Stoddart, finishing her term this June. Ainsley McLaren, Harbour Asset Management executive director clients, is also due to relinquish her FMA board spot in September this year.
FMA chief, Rob Everett, is also due to exit at the end of this year just as the regulator steps up into a new phase of growth.
As well as significant budget increases, the regulator is also poised to take on extra responsibilities under the in-transit Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment Bill – or COFI – later this year after kicking off a new financial adviser licensing regime in March. COFI is seventh on the order paper as parliament returns to business this Tuesday (August 3).
The FMA budget is set to rise to about $61 million in the 2022/23 fiscal year, up from just $36 million in the 2019/20 season.
Meanwhile, the Financial Advice Code Committee, chaired by Angus Dale-Jones, is also set to replace three members who officially ended their terms last week.
John Berry, Shane Edmond and Brian McCulloch – respectively, Pathfinder chief, Forsyth Barr head of private client services and, independent consultant – all finished their three-year stints on the code body on July 31.
The committee oversees the new adviser code established under the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act (FSLAA), which came into force this March. Established well before FSLAA passed into law, the committee drafted a new code to set ethical, behavioural and competence standards for the broader advisory sector subject to the legislation. Under the now-defunct 2008 law, a code only applied to authorised financial advisers – a group of less than 2,000 individuals.
Suitable Code Committee candidates should have “experience giving advice in a small to medium sized businesses, experience providing financial services digitally, or… a consumer perspective”, according to the job description.
Dale-Jones said the adviser code was likely to evolve and would benefit from new perspectives over time.
Since going live in March, he said the code appeared to be operating smoothly with no major problems reported.
“But we strongly encourage advisers to give us feedback on the code,” Dale-Jones said.
Interested parties can contact the Code Committee via this link.
The Financial Advisers Disciplinary Committee (FADC) is also on the look-out for another board member. Chaired by Sir Bruce Robertson, the FADC includes TSB general manager, Tracey Berry, and former financial adviser, Simon Hassan – among others – on the board.