Spectrum Wealth Adviser, Gurumukh Singh Mehra, has been banned from providing financial services for a period of three years, after ob体育 surveillance showed he failed to act in his clients鈥� best interests.
Through ob体育鈥檚 surveillance of life insurance advice, it was found Mr Mehra had failed to:
- make reasonable enquiries into his clients鈥� relevant circumstances, such as obtaining existing superannuation and insurance information;
- adequately investigate the clients鈥� existing financial products prior to making insurance recommendations;
- compare the features and costs of any existing insurance with that recommended to clients; and
- base all judgements on the clients鈥� relevant circumstances.
ob体育 also found that Mr Mehra is not competent, or adequately trained, to provide financial services.
ob体育's has useful information for clients of banned advisers.
Mr Mehra鈥檚 banning will be recorded on ob体育鈥檚 Financial Adviser Register. He has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ob体育's decision.
Background
This outcome is a result of ob体育's Life Insurance Lapse Data Project (LILD Project). The LILD Project was established in August 2016 to make greater use of data to focus ob体育's surveillance of life insurance advice, with the aim of improving life insurance advice provided to Australian consumers.
Under the LILD Project ob体育 receives reports from life insurers that list the names of advisers who meet specific thresholds relating to lapsed policies. ob体育 analyses these reports and other data to identify a group of high risk advisers.
The resulting high-risk list is not in itself an assessment of poor quality advice. The list enables ob体育 to target its surveillance activity. ob体育 then reviews the quality of advice provided by advisers on the list to determine whether the advisers are acting in their clients' best interests.