Adviser licensing not a given: Dalziel

Anyone who thinks that the Government is going to move quickly on changes to laws covering financial advisers better think again.

Commerce minister Lianne Dalziel has told Good Returns that the proposed legislation changes put forward by the Securities Commission two Christmases ago probably won't be introduced into Parliament until 2004.

Two of the key points in the proposals are that the two-tier disclosure regime will be placed with a single-tier one, and the Securities Commission will be given the power to ban advisers.

Dalziel says the government supports the changes, however they will be introduced into Parliament with other measures aimed at improving New Zealand's securities market.

Between now and next year the government will be looking at the how the advisory industry is regulated and see if there is a better way of controlling it.

One of the options is a licensing regime, however Dalziel has made it very clear that licensing of financial advisers is only an idea.

"It's not a given there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot of talking to be done," he says.

Dalziel says the government is under no pressure to make changes to rules governing how the advisory industry is controlled. However she does acknowledge that New Zealand is out of step with the rest of the developed world and the guidelines laid done by the IOSCO, the International Organisation of Securities Commissions.

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