The corporate regulator has moved to ban a Melbourne-based financial adviser for six years after finding issues with his SMSF advice.

ASIC has banned financial adviser Jihad Soleiman, of Wollert, Victoria, from providing financial services for six years.

Mr Soleiman, an authorised representative of Apogee Financial Planning Limited (Apogee) during the period June 2013 to February 2018, had been approached by clients about SMSFs for the purposes of either investing into property or property development companies.

According to ASIC, Mr Soleiman had a conflict of interest because his clients were looking to invest through his brothers who were in the property development business.

He referred his clients to an SMSF administration business to facilitate the establishment of their SMSFs without providing advice, before then providing advice to roll over their existing super funds into their recently established SMSFs.

The corporate regulator said that Mr Soleiman was told by his licensee that he did not have the required expertise to advise on SMSFs generally, but he still proceeded to provide SMSF advice to his clients.

In doing so, Mr Soleiman failed to prioritise his clients’ interests and failed to act in the best interests of his clients with his advice.

Read the full original article here.