It comes as British research revealed disciplinary moves had been taken against fewer than 1% of advisers there, despite widespread misselling claims and accusations of bad advice.

IFA chief executive Fred Dodds said the situation in New Zealand was different and the fact few advisers had felt the sharp end of regulatory action meant most were behaving appropriately.

The Financial Advisers Disciplinary Committee has dealt with just a handful of advisers since its inception.

External dispute resolution schemes also report relatively few complaints against their adviser members. IFSO said 2% of its 2015 complaints were against financial advisers and FDR said 6% of its cases were against advisers,  three against investment advisers, 11 against mortgage advisers and 12 against insurance advisers.

FDR said that was a small number considering that 80% of its members were advisers. All the complaints were resolved.

FSCL had more - just under 50 of the 193 cases it investigated in the 2015 year related to advisers.

Dodds said the relatively low number of complaints and the lack of disciplinary action against advisers seemed to indicate that New Zealand advisers were doing well for their clients and raised questions about why such extension legislation had been enacted to govern the sector.

"It resonates with what [adviser and former SiFA president] Murray Weatherston said, what is the problem regulation is looking to solve?" he said.

"Regulators are making AFAs jump hurdles, prove the industry is doing right by consumers, why have they had to go and do what they have to do, it seems they've been beaten to death by finance companies and David Ross but financial adviser operations are actually pretty effective."