Bankers - they cheat us here, they cheat us there

Headlines from around the world this morning suggest that banks cheat us everywhere.
From Australia's Fairfax papers:
2013-12-20_banksandsuper
And on the other side the of the world comes this report from the European edition of The Wall Street Journal:
2013-12-20_cheatingbankers

Clipping the ticket of ordinary people's savings appears to have no limit for the money managers.
And now, it seems, the Australian Coalition government is intent on aiding and abetting the robbery. The Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos today announced plans to undo changes made by the previous Labor government to protect consumers from greedy financial planners. One of the proposed changes would water down a provision obliging financial advisors to always act in the best interests of their clients.
The ABC reports that the Government also wants to remove the "opt-in" requirement, which forces financial advisors to contact fee-paying clients every two years to renew their contacts. It would also scrap rules requiring financial advisors to disclose how much they charge clients in annual fees.
The group representing industry superannuation funds is worried the changes will allow financial planners to once again receive sales commissions, paid for by banks and private super funds.
Industry Super Australia executive manager David Whitely says he particularly concerned about provision requiring advisor's to act the best interest of clients.
"We're very concerned that changes to the best interest test will result in creating loopholes which allow financial planners to once again receive sales commissions, ongoing fees, volume rebates and all sorts of other incentives to sell a product," he said.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is Scott Morrison getting ahead of Malcolm Turnbull in the GST debate?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison under pressure as the question about knowledge of a rape gets embarrassing

Remembering that Labor only lost last time because of Bill Shorten