{"id":"F2019L00117","name":"Financial Planners and Advisers Code of Ethics 2019","slug":"financial-planners-and-advisers-code-of-ethics-2019","collection":"legislative_instrument","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":null,"makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":98735,"registerId":"commonwealth-F2019L00117-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-04-02","status":"InForce","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Name","content":"#### 1 Name\n\n  This is the Financial Planners and Advisers Code of Ethics 2019.\n\n> Note: All relevant providers must comply with this Code under section 921E of the Corporations Act 2001.","sortOrder":0},{"sectionNumber":"2","sectionType":"section","heading":"Commencement","content":"#### 2 Commencement\n\n  This Code commences at the end of 30 days after it is registered.","sortOrder":1},{"sectionNumber":"3","sectionType":"section","heading":"Authority","content":"#### 3 Authority\n\n  This Code is made under paragraph 921U(2)(b) of the Corporations Act 2001.","sortOrder":2},{"sectionNumber":"4","sectionType":"section","heading":"Interpretation","content":"#### 4 Interpretation\n\n> Note: The Corporations Act 2001 defines financial product, financial services licensee, monitoring body, personal advice, relevant provider and retail client.\n\n  (1) In this Code:\n\n> benefits includes both monetary and non-monetary benefits, but not any fixed component of remuneration.\n\n> Note: Variable components of remuneration (for example, performance bonuses) are benefits under this definition.\n\n> client, in relation to a relevant provider, includes a retail client of the principal of the relevant provider.\n\n> Principal: the principal of a relevant provider is the financial services licensee who has authorised the provider to provide, on its behalf, personal advice to retail clients.\n\n> Note: Your employer may be your principal. If you are a financial services licensee, you will not have a principal.\n\n  (2) Unless this Code expressly says otherwise, do not read down any of the provisions of this Code by reference to any other provision of this Code.","sortOrder":3},{"sectionNumber":"5","sectionType":"section","heading":"The Values and the Standards","content":"#### 5 The Values and the Standards\n\n  Introduction\n  In 2017 the Commonwealth Parliament amended the Corporations Act 2001 to raise the education, training and ethical standards of financial advisers and financial planners, promote enhanced consumer trust and confidence in financial planners and financial advisers and refocus them from providing commercial services to acting as professionals.\n  While the ethos of “the market” legitimises the pursuit of self-interest through the satisfaction of others’ wants, the ethos of “the professions” aims to secure the public good through the subordination of self-interest in favour of serving the interests of others.\n  In return for renouncing the pursuit of self-interest, society often provides members of the professions with a range of formal and informal privileges (such as a “monopoly” right to undertake certain types of work).\n  Appropriate financial advice can significantly improve people’s financial well-being. In a time of increasing volatility, it is in the public interest that the profession enjoy the trust and confidence of its clients and the wider community. In turn, this requires that members of the profession develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions required to earn that trust.\n  Collectively, financial planners and advisers are members of Australia’s newest profession. As such, while they formerly provided a commercial service, they should be committed to offering a professional service—informed by a code of ethics intended to shape every aspect of their professional conduct.\n  This Code imposes ethical duties that go above the requirements in the law. It is designed to encourage higher standards of behaviour and professionalism in the financial services industry.\n  The Values\n  You must always act in a way that demonstrates, realises and promotes the following values:\n    (a) trustworthiness;\n    (b) competence;\n    (c) honesty;\n    (d) fairness;\n    (e) diligence.\n  Trustworthiness:\n  Acting to demonstrate, realise and promote the value of trustworthiness requires that you act in good faith in your relationships with other people. Trust is earned by good conduct. It is easily broken by unethical conduct. Trust requires you act with integrity and honesty in all your professional dealings, and these values are interrelated.\n  Acting ethically, with trustworthiness, promotes trust in the profession of financial advice by consumers, enabling the community to feel confidence in accessing and utilising professional financial services\n  Competence:\n  Acting to demonstrate, realise and promote the value of competence requires you to have regard to the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to perform your professional obligations to each of your clients. It requires you to assess the professional services required by each client with regard to their individual needs, priorities, circumstances and preferences, expressed or implicitly identified as the subject matter of the financial advisory engagement. While it may be possible to supplement your professional competence by accessing the expertise of others, the duty of competence is ultimately personal and cannot be outsourced to others.\n  Honesty:\n  Acting to demonstrate, realise and promote the value of honesty requires that you conduct yourself with complete integrity in all your professional dealings with your clients and with all others that you engage with in a professional setting. It requires transparency, frankness and fairness to each of your clients, even where this may cause you personal detriment.\n  Fairness:\n  Acting to demonstrate, realise and promote the value of fairness requires that you bring professional objectivity to the task of engaging with clients professionally, and when recommending financial products and professional services. It requires you to properly investigate, evaluate and diagnose a client’s need for professional services, and to self-reflect on the limits of your professional competency.\n  Diligence\n  Acting to demonstrate, realise and promote the value of diligence requires that you perform all professional engagements with due care and skill. It requires you to manage your time and resources to deliver professional services in a timely, efficient and cost effective way to each client.\n  Values paramount\n  These values are paramount. All the other provisions of this Code must be read and applied in a way that promotes the values.","sortOrder":4}],"analysis":{"flash_summary_failed":{"failed":true,"reason":"A positive credit balance is required for all requests, including BYOK, so fallback providers remain available. Add credits at https://vercel.com/d?to=%2F%5Bteam%5D%2F%7E%2Fai%3Fmodal%3Dtop-up to continue.","source":"analysis-cron"},"kimi_summary":{"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The legislation remains focused on its original purpose: establishing ethical standards for financial advisers. The preamble explicitly ties the Code to the 2017 Corporations Act amendments that created this professional standards framework, and the content stays tightly within the bounds of setting values and standards for adviser conduct."},"complexity_factors":["Short document (approximately 1,500 words across 5 sections)","Only 4 defined terms in the interpretation section (benefits, client, principal, plus references to Corporations Act definitions)","No nested exceptions or conditional logic—standards are expressed as broad principles rather than detailed rules","Single cross-reference to the Corporations Act 2001 for definitions and enforcement mechanism","Structure is straightforward: name, commencement, authority, interpretation, then substantive values and standards","Language is intentionally accessible and principle-based rather than technical, with explanatory notes embedded throughout"],"plain_english_summary":"The Financial Planners and Advisers Code of Ethics 2019 is a legally binding ethical standard for Australian financial advisers and their licensees, built around five core values: trustworthiness, competence, honesty, fairness and diligence. It applies to advisers giving personal advice to retail clients and raises the profession’s duties—requiring advisers to prioritise client interests and meet higher ethical standards than commercial norms. For clients it means stronger protections; for advisers it sets enforceable conduct obligations."},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":6,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Code does not expand who is captured under the Corporations Act; it applies to the same \"relevant providers\" and retail personal advice relationships defined by the Act (s4 note). Instead, it deepens obligations by imposing higher ethical duties and values beyond statutory minima (s5 introduction). Enforcement and practical scope therefore change in the intensity of obligations and discretionary enforcement by principals/monitoring bodies, not in the population regulated (see s1 note, s4)."},"complexity_factors":["Normative, subjective standards (trustworthiness, competence, honesty, fairness, diligence) require judgment calls rather than bright‑line rules (s5).","The Code explicitly imposes duties “above the requirements in the law,” creating potential tension between statutory obligations and higher ethical expectations (s5 introduction).","Multiple cross‑references to the Corporations Act for key terms (financial product, relevant provider, retail client, personal advice) mean practitioners must read both instruments together (s4 note).","Definitions carve out items (e.g. benefits includes variable but not fixed remuneration), creating interpretive complexity for remuneration and conflicts‑of‑interest analysis (s4(1)).","Principal/relevant provider relationships and delegation responsibilities affect who is accountable and who enforces the Code; this allocates decision‑making power to licensees/principals and monitoring bodies (s4(1) definitions; s1 note).","The non‑derogation instruction (do not read down provisions by reference to others) limits interpretive softening across the Code and can increase legal conservatism in compliance (s4(2)).","Commencement timing (30 days after registration) creates a short implementation window for systems, training and documentation changes (s2)."],"plain_english_summary":"This Code requires relevant providers (financial planners and advisers giving personal advice to retail clients) to follow a mandatory set of ethical values and standards—trustworthiness, competence, honesty, fairness and diligence—starting 30 days after registration (see s1, s2, s5). The Code says Parliament’s 2017 reforms aimed to raise adviser standards and it imposes duties above legal minima; that shifts compliance costs and judgment onto advisers, while principals and monitoring bodies decide enforcement and interpretation."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/financial-planners-and-advisers-code-of-ethics-2019","history":"/api/acts/financial-planners-and-advisers-code-of-ethics-2019/history","analysis":"/api/acts/financial-planners-and-advisers-code-of-ethics-2019/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/financial-planners-and-advisers-code-of-ethics-2019/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/financial-planners-and-advisers-code-of-ethics-2019/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/financial-planners-and-advisers-code-of-ethics-2019/documents"}}