Fred Dodds pointed to Australia, where requirements are being lifted quickly.

NAB, which owns BNZ in New Zealand, wants advisers in Australia to have a degree and certified financial planner (CFP) accreditation by 2017.

Dodds said the New Zealand industry needed to understand that a higher-level qualification requirement was inevitable.

“We need to understand that if we want to be seen as a viable industry and association, it’s the way to go. Young people coming in now have got degrees, we need to do that. One of the fascinating things is what do you do when you’ve got to take people yelling, screaming and kicking to the higher level?”

He said some experienced advisers would argue that extra qualifications would not alter the type of work they did.

"But there needs to be understanding that it gets down to personal pride and professionalism. To say I'm a professional and I have gone the extra mile and done some study."

Professional bodies had a role to play taking the lead, he said.

The IFA administers the CFP standard in New Zealand but Dodds said it was unlikely to become a requirement for advisers here.

Meanwhile, the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) society in New Zealand wants them to go a step further.

CFA Society president David McCallum said the CFA society in New Zealand has 280 members, most of whom are in fund management roles.

McCallum said the society’s long-term goal was to build its AFA membership. “CFA globally has that target. Historically it grew out of an asset management and institutional focus but we have identified that more and more over time the individual wealth advisers are very important and targeting that area is something that is of interest.”

AFAs would benefit from CFA status because the qualification required was a high standard, he said.

Dodds said there was a wider need to promote financial advice. “How do we get people to say ‘I do need one of those guys, they know what they’re talking about’?”