As a financial adviser you possess special skills, knowledge and expertise that are potentially hugely valuable to your client’s financial welfare.

Your clients, who don’t possess these assets, are therefore in a position of dependency, relying on you to look after their interests.

A conflict of interest arises when the integrity of that agreement between adviser and client is threatened.

Royal Commissioner Hayne said that the interests of the client are to obtain the best financial advice reasonably available whereas the adviser’s interest is to further his or her career and to maximise financial reward. FASEA’s Standard 3 means if you, as an adviser, get this wrong, you risk being the first up against the wall when the Independent Complaints Body is set up next year.

The case studies enclosed in this Masterclass are instances of adviser conduct that are considered either potentially or actually not to be genuinely independent.

The question to ask is “I’m a professional, is this a threat to my integrity? Am I behaving as a professional should? In what way is my duty to my client compromised, or my client’s interests conflicting with my own?”