Camelot adviser Stephen Parr has written to the Authority to formally complain about the advert.

"As a public education, it's just horrifying," he said.

Parr said the advert portrays all advisers as cowboys, unable to be trusted until the arrival of the new regulator last week, and it unfairly places the emphasis for prior financial problems at the advisers door.

"It discredits what the IFA (Institute of Financial Advisers) and its predecessors have built up over a couple of decades. It's just playing on the fact I strongly believe the adviser group as a whole have been done over by those covering their own butts."

However, FMA chief Sean Hughes has defended the advert, saying he is surprised by the negative reaction from advisers.

"[The adverts] are targeted at the people who shouldn't be in the industry," he said.

He said the FMA was not targeting good advisers with the advert, and that advisers approved to work in the new environment should treat their status as a competitive advantage.

"Why throw away all that good effort and work and have some cowboy come in and steal your lunch?"

In his letter to the ASA Parr says he believes the advert is "likely to bring the financial advisory industry into disrepute" and that it breaches a number of sections of the Advertising Code of Ethics and the Code for Financial Advertising.

"The advert is socially irresponsible and seeks to depict financial advisers as cowboys," he writes.

"This is deeply offensive to financial advisers and their clients and the industry at large. The advertisement appears to seek only the self-aggrandisement of the Financial Markets Authority."

Parr said he has requested the withdrawal of the advert and "a public apology by the FMA to the financial advisory community."

Hughes said the adverts were tested before launch and had been shown to both the IFA and NZ Mortgage Brokers Association (NZMBA).

"I'm not out there to make enemies," he said.

"But I don't have any regrets either."