Speaking at the Workplace Savings Conference yesterday she said financial advisers are not where they should be when it comes to the core requirements of acting with care, diligence, competency and professionalism.

“I don’t think we are quite there yet,” she said.

She said it was “unfortunate” to be three years into regulation and the FMA was not seeing all those requirements being met.

In the same speech she reiterated the comments FMA director of compliance Elaine Campbell made to the Institute of Financial Advisers conference several weeks ago.

The message is advisers who comply with the FMA and "play it straight", will see the good face of the regulator. Those who don't will see something quite different.

Kirsty Campbell did say that "access to good quality advice is essential" for a properly functioning market and advisers had an important role to play giving advice around KiwiSaver.

"We need trusted financial advisers that put customers first, act with integrity, care, diligence and skill."

She said the the FMA was worried about the number of AFAs in the market and that the average age of advisers was 52.

Currently there are just over 1900 advisers and there are around 2500 people within qualifying financial entities that can give investment advice.

Kirsty Campbell said that while the FMA was focused on policing the AFA population it expected registered financial advisers to act with the same level of care, diligence, competency and professionalism.

She said the FMA was worried about cases when advice is influenced by fees and commissions and the regulator was going to work on the RFA sector "more and more."