The financial planning education and training agenda in Australia

Against a backdrop of financial services reform and uncertain economic times, attention has been focused on the competence of financial advisers. This paper examines the current training and education standards set by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and those set by professional bodies such as the Financial Planning Association of Australia. It provides a comparison of the state of regulation of financial planners in the United States with the recent report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The paper suggests that minimum training standards set by the Australian regulator have allowed private education providers to capture the training and education agenda away from the profession with the result that financial planning in Australia may not yet be a profession, but simply an industry.