The Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry last week heard the Commonwealth Bank had charged dead clients for advice.

Then it revealed AMP had misled the regulator as many as 20 times over its practice of charging for advice clients never received.

Sector commentator David Whyte, former head of insurance companies on both sides of the Tasman. has suggested an inquiry is needed in this country - if only to prove that there is nothing untoward happening here.

He said the culture of multinational organisations was driven by the same performance measures and expectations, no matter which country they were operating in.

But Fred Dodds, chief executive of the IFA, said there seemed to be little to complain about in New Zealand.

Any inquiry would end up simply looking at the level of commission paid on life insurance, he said.

"Where is the evidence in New Zealand of the stuff that's happening in Australia?"

Whyte said providers needed to "come clean" about what they were doing and where the boundaries between sales and advice activity were drawn.

There have been concerns that banks and other big providers promote "advice" when they can only place clients in their own products.

But Dodds said someone who took $1 million to an ANZ adviser, for example, would only end up with 20% of that money in ANZ products. "There's an assumption that when you go to a bank with $1m you walk out with $1m of bank product - that just doesn't happen. You need evidence before you start banging the drum.

"If we had an inquiry, you need to be a bit careful what you ask for. You could end up with a wider thing that you think it will be."

The FMA said it was watching the Royal Commission very closely and had been talking with NZ-based firms about their operations.

"Our Strategic Risk Outlook and our Annual Corporate Plan set out a number of priority areas and related work programmes which reflect our focus on sales practices and advice. These priority areas have been partly driven by what we have seen in Australia, the UK and other jurisdictions.

"We are considering whether to accelerate or adapt any of the planned work to reflect issues being raised in the Royal Commission.  We are also in close dialogue with the RBNZ on those matters.”

Earlier this week NAB faced allegations of false witnessing, ANZ admitted "commercial interests" came ahead of consumers and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull admitted the process could have begun sooner.