ASIC Places 5yr Ban on Former ARs of Financial Masterplan

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) today announced that it has banned Trent Allan and Fabrizio Urrutia, former authorised representatives of Australian financial services licensee Financial Masterplan Pty Ltd, from providing any financial services for five years.

As detailed in the official announcement, the Australian regulator found that Mr Allan and Mr Urrutia had not complied with financial services laws and ASIC has reason to believe that they are not adequately trained or competent to provide financial services.

Mr Allan and Mr Urrutia were authorised representatives of Financial Masterplan from 24 June 2016 until 25 May 2021. They were also involved in the activities of Vision Wealth Group Pty Ltd (Vision Wealth), a corporate authorised representative of Financial Masterplan.

Vision Wealth established a website called Australian Super Search, which was used to attract clients by helping them find their lost super through the  Australian Tax Office’s (ATO) free service. The search results were used by Mr Allan and Mr Urrutia to provide clients with superannuation consolidation and insurance advice, and a number of clients were signed up to an ongoing service arrangement.

Mr Allan and Mr Urrutia provided advice without a thorough investigation of the clients’ needs and objectives. In many cases, they did not make adequate enquiries about their clients’ existing superannuation and insurance products. Their advice also failed to provide appropriate reasoning for recommending the replacement of existing products.

ASIC found that, in providing this advice, Mr Allan and Mr Urrutia failed to act in the best interests of their clients and prioritised their own interests over their clients’ interests. ASIC also found that advice documents, comparing the existing and recommended products, were materially misleading.