Angus Dale-Jones made the comments at the Select Committee considering submissions on the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill.

He said the Code Working Group had a significant task ahead of it to develop a new code that could deal with a universe of 30,000 advisers, not just the 1800 "high end" advisers currently operating under a code.

The new framework would focus on entities but allow for individual professionalism, he said, which switched the balance of legislation.

The world of financial services was changing dramatically, he told the committee, as technology transformed the landscape.

The working group would need sufficient depth and breadth to design a scalable code that would accommodate that.

"There's a much broader scope in how financial service is delivered as opposed to medicine, accounting or law," he said.

It might be that advice was given by an individual or through a product provider's streamlined processes, or via a computer system. "Or it might be some combination. Other professions tend to be very centred on the skills of the individual," he said. "That's not the case with financial services."

He said the nine members of the working group represented more of the subsections of financial advice that were not currently as heavily regulated.

Authorised financial advisers - of whom the industry has argued there is too little representation on the working group - would experience less change under the new regime than other parts of the industry, he said.

The new code and regime would put every situation where there was a recommendation or opinion offered together and determine a code of conduct that would provide a uniform standard for consumers to expect.

Dale-Jones said he was confident the code could do it but it would need to be able to approach it in a way that was not legalistic. The working group was on track to get the code to the minister by the end of the year, he said.

He said the exemptions in law that allow for financial advice by lawyers and accountants were not needed and those industries could be catered for by the code, too.