New Zealand is determined not to get bogged down in financial services legislation as sticky as the Financial Services Reform Act, but a Government task force investigating regulatory possibilities is still dealing with plenty of complexities surrounding the definition of “financial intermediary”.

At present the net has been cast very wide, so wide that finance journalists could be forced to be licensed to meet the description of any person “who provides financial advice and/or promotes or markets financial products to another person”.

One group wanting exemption is general insurers and their agents, with the Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) submitting that general insurers and agents should be excluded because of “a very clear differentiation of roles between general insurance and life investment”.

Several other bodies, including the Commonwealth Press Union, the NZ Law Society and the Advertising Standards Authority also oppose inclusion in the definition, which includes fund managers, bank employees, mortgage brokers, financial planners and advisers, specialist investment advisory institutions, loan brokers, chartered accountants and lawyers, general insurance brokers, real estate agents and budgetary advisers.

ICNZ CEO Chris Ryan says while the council supports many of the reasons behind the taskforce, from an insurance point of view, insurance companies aren’t intermediaries.

“We’re a supplier of a product,” he said.

Similarly, he says an agent of an insurance company – specifically a bank – which is not offering a choice of products, should be exempt.

“They’re not a financial intermediary offering a choice of products, they’re simply acting as an agency for insurers.”