The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has been questioned as to why it failed to include a specific expert on self-managed superannuation funds in the Financial Services and Credit Panel.
Speaking at the Senate Estimates, ASIC said the 31 initial members of the panel were decided based on nominations from peak organisations who had submitted consultation on the Better Advice Bill.
“We made sure that the people we were picking were members from a range of specialisation within advice to ensure that the disciplinary body is a proper peer review process.
“I’d imagine most financial advisers have some experience with self-managed superannuation, that’s a pretty broad skillset. But we tried to get a full cross-section of people from the industry.
“The panel isn’t just limited to these people, this is the first tranche and if we feel there’s a skillset or expertise that is missing, there is no reason why we couldn’t appoint a different person.”
The reason there were no consumer groups represented on the panel was because it was a peer panel rather than a representative body.
