ob体育 has banned Tanawha-based adviser Douglas Cecil Allen from providing financial services for three years.
ob体育鈥檚 review of a sample of Mr Allen鈥檚 advice files identied that Mr Allen was using a 鈥榣ayered advice鈥� strategy and ob体育 found that he provided advice that was not in the clients best interests, was not appropriate and that he made false or misleading statements.
It was found that, when providing advice to clients, Mr Allen failed to:
- make reasonable enquiries to obtain complete and accurate information when certain aspects of a client鈥檚 situation were incomplete or inaccurate;
- reasonably consider a client鈥檚 insurance options when recommending a client consolidate their superannuation. Mr Allen did not provide a reasonable assessment of the client鈥檚 existing insurance, or consider whether there would be insurance consequences for rolling over the client鈥檚 superannuation which may have resulted in them being uninsured for a period; and
- appropriately scope the superannuation advice to include insurance. Such a limited scope resulted in an insufficient assessment of whether the benefits achieved from rolling over a client鈥檚 superannuation would outweigh the disadvantages from the loss of the insurance.
Mr Allen鈥檚 statement of advice documents provided to clients also contained product comparison tables that were false or misleading. In comparing the client鈥檚 superannuation products, Mr Allen understated the potential insurance costs despite knowing the insurance premiums would likely be higher once insurance advice was provided.
The banning order took effect from 15 March 2022.
The banning has been recorded on ob体育鈥檚 publicly available and the Banned and Disqualified register. ob体育鈥檚 website has useful information for consumers whose advisers have been banned.
Mr Allen sought a review of ob体育鈥檚 decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on 6 April 2022. The application for review was withdrawn on 6 February 2023.
Background
Mr Allen was the sole director and secretary of Global Pacific Solutions Group Pty Ltd (Global Pacific) (AFS licence no. 514164) since 22 January 2019. Mr Allen was also Global Pacific鈥檚 responsible manager, operations manager, compliance manger, complaints manager and training officer.
Prior to his involvement in Global Pacific, Mr Allen was a representative of Smart Solutions Group (Aust) Pty Ltd (Smart Solutions) (AFS licence no. 500218).
The director and responsible manager of Smart Solutions, Tim Shapter, was banned, and the AFS licence cancelled, by ob体育 in February 2020 [20-020 MR].