Last week’s bucketing of Australia’s financial planners has brought a whole lot more complaints out of the woodwork. Financial Industry Complaints Services (FICS) Chief Executive Alison Maynard says the joint Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)/Australian Consumers Association (ACA) survey has prompted more complaints against financial planners.

Although Ms Maynard does not know the precise numbers, she said the number of phone calls received by FICS each day “has definitely gone up since the report was released”.  

Financial planners are already feeling the heat, with ASIC warning that those shown to be incompetent may face legal action as a result of the survey findings.

The survey found many financial planners were focused on commissions and used generic plans rather than personalised models. Around half of the 124 financial plans analysed failed to meet their clients’ most basic needs.

Peter Kell, ASIC’s Executive Director of Consumer Protection, says ASIC takes the survey findings “very seriously”. He told a packed media conference in Sydney that in the past two years 62 financial advisers have been removed from the industry and 10 have been jailed.

“We are carefully assessing the information from the survey to identify what future actions we will take,” he said.

Some of the large financial planners, including AMP, ANZ and JB Were are ranked among the worst performers, receiving a “very low” rating. Other poor performers include St George Bank, MLC and the Commonwealth and Westpac banks.

Calling the results of its latest survey on financial planning practices the worst on any product since the mid-1960s, the ACA said it will look to conduct another one once the FSRA is fully in place next year.