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The Corporations Amendment (Professional Standards of Financial Advisers) Act 2017 (Cth) introduced key amendments to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (Act) which apply to new and existing 'relevant providers' from 1 January 2019, unless the Act authorises you for an extension of time.
You are affected by the changes if you are a relevant provider.
A relevant provider[1] is a person who is:
who is authorised to provide personal advice to retail clients, as the licensee or on behalf of the licensee, in relation to relevant financial products. These providers typically call themselves 'financial advisers' and 'financial planners'.
The Act now requires that from 1 January 2019, new relevant providers must:
In addition, all new and existing relevant providers must:
You have extra time to conform with these changes if you are an existing provider. An existing provider includes someone who is a relevant provider between 1 January 2016 and 1 January 2019 and has not been banned, disqualified or suspended during this time.
The ASIC website details the timeline of when new and existing Financial Advisers have to comply with these changes.[2]
Unless you are a relevant provider, you cannot:
In each case it is an offence to do this.
For more information, contact Maddocks on (03) 9258 3555 and ask to speak to a member of the Commercial team.
[1] Section 901A of the Act.
[2] See: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/financial-services/professional-standards-for-financial-advisers-reforms/
[3] See Section 923C of the Act.
Julian Smith is a partner in the Maddocks Commercial team.
Julian advises extensively in the following areas:
Julian advises clients ranging from public companies servicing the wholesale financial services market to high net worth individuals and their advisers.
Julian has been with Maddocks since undertaking articles in 2001.
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