AMP chief executive Craig Dunn has hit back at recent suggestions that integrated financial services organisations are the cause of the current financial woes and should be dismantled, arguing they are still vital to satisfying people's financial needs.
Such integrated businesses offer product manufacturing, platforms, investment management and financial planning.
"Consumers are realistic and they know people are fallible. Sometimes they make mistakes and sometimes things go wrong. So many customers want their relationship with their financial planner to be backed by a big brand they trust and can rely on," he told an audience of the Trans Tasman Business Circle.
"Rely on to have checks and balances in place, rely on to manage most risks and to rely on for financial strength and the will to put things right if things were to go wrong," Dunn said.
In regard to the current situation where some financial planning clients have suffered hardship, Dunn said he was not aware of any integrated financial services businesses that had been at the cause of the problem.
"Planners aligned to large institutions have largely avoided the financial failures of the last 18 months," Dunn said.
In reference to conflicts of interest, he said the model of an integrated financial services business was not perfect and they would always exist and have to be managed carefully.
"But in an imperfect world people make trade-offs. They make trade-offs about what's most important to them and they don't need a higher authority to tell them what should be important to them," Dunn said.
"Different consumers will prefer different things and for many people the security that our model brings clearly outweighs any potential drawbacks."
