the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services IndustryLinks to an external site. was created to examine the misbehavior of financial services entities and their agents. In its Final Report, the Commission wrote that:[I]n almost every case, the conduct in issue was driven not only by the relevant entity’s pursuit of profit but also by individuals’ pursuit of gain, whether in the form of remuneration for the individual or profit for the individual’s business. Providing a service to customers was relegated to second place. Sales became all important. Those who dealt with customers became sellers. And the confusion of roles extended well beyond front line service staff. Advisers became sellers and sellers became advisersThis assignment is designed to help you develop your research, analytical, and professional writing skills. Good writing skills are one of the most important graduate attributes sought after by employers. You will need to become adept at finding relevant resources.In this assignment you are to:Discuss how the incentive structure in financial services firms can lead sales to become “all important”, with customers “relegated to second place”.Examine what evidence there is that conflicts of interest created by incentive structures can influence financial advisers and lead to poor outcomes for customers.In answering the question, you should:Apply the concepts, theories and models that you have learned in classDiscuss theoretical issues and empirical evidence. Set out a logical argument and draw on relevant evidence when making assertionsUse appropriate referencing where an idea has been drawn from a scholarly source (scholarly journal articles, working papers, research books and other scholarly publications). Referencing should be complete, comprehensive and consistent. This implies that any reference that you list should allow the reader to go to that source and confirm that the source is correct and the arguments espoused in the writing are in fact derived from that source. Harvard referencing is recommended for referencing. A Harvard Referencing Guide is provided on Canvas.The word limit for this assessment is 1,500 words (excluding the abstract and bibliography).
