When the All Blacks tour South Africa this August, the scoreboard will not be the only contest worth watching. New Zealand has spent two seasons running the conduct game plan South Africa is about to put on the field. This quarter we bring those lessons home — and show you how to watch the replay first.
South Africa’s advice profession is heading into a defining shift in how financial advice is regulated. The Conduct of Financial Institutions framework will move supervision away from following rules and towards proving fair outcomes. It will judge the advice business, not only the adviser. The useful part is that the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have already made this change — so the lessons they leave behind are clear and practical.
This edition brings those lessons home. We look at what New Zealand’s two-season head start teaches South African advisers, at the handful of disciplines that separate the world’s best advice businesses from the rest, and at how to get your own advice business ready. We close with the two assessments that turn all of this into a plan you can act on.
Read on, then take the next step.
When the All Blacks land in South Africa in August 2026 for the four-Test Freedom Cup series, most fans will be thinking about the Springboks and the scoreboard. The record still favours New Zealand, roughly 63 wins to 43, though the Erasmus era has narrowed the gap. There is a second contest worth watching though — one that has nothing to do with the scrum. It is playing out in the regulator’s office, where New Zealand has spent two seasons running its conduct game plan and South Africa is about to put almost the same moves on the field.
Anton Swanepoel made this connection a decade ago. Writing on the lessons of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, he argued that business at the top is fiercely competitive and rewards teams that are fit, prepared, committed and mentally tough. As he put it, it is never over until the administration is done. Conduct regulation simply raises the standard of administration the referee now expects.
Few South African advisers realise that New Zealand already has its own conduct regime in play. Its Conduct of Financial Institutions regime, created by the Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment Act 2022, opened for licensing on 25 July 2023 and came into full force on 31 March 2025. The model was scouted from the United Kingdom and Australia. Britain gave the world Treating Customers Fairly and the Consumer Duty. Australia gave us the Hayne Royal Commission, which exposed what happens when institutions coach for sales volume instead of customer outcomes. Conduct and culture reviews found institutions with perfectly compliant processes still delivering poor results: more than 215 million New Zealand dollars had to be returned to over 1.5 million customers for fees overcharged and discounts never applied. So New Zealand built its regime around a single demand: treat consumers fairly, and prove it.
That should ring a bell. South Africa’s Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill is the final phase of the Twin Peaks reform begun by the Financial Sector Regulation Act 9 of 2017, and it reaches for the same line. Same playbook, same philosophy, a different jersey.
Think of it as a fixture — two nations running the same plays, two seasons apart.
Sources: the Financial Markets Authority (New Zealand), South Africa’s National Treasury, and the FAIS General Code of Conduct.
The lesson from New Zealand is simple. Advice businesses that treated the regime as a compliance chore got cost, paperwork and a frustrated team. Those that treated it as a business-management exercise used it to rebuild their value proposition, sharpen their target market, clean up conflicted remuneration and tell a stronger story to clients. The regime did not shrink them. It made them more professional and more valuable.
The regime is not a referee blowing for a knock-on. It is a strength-and-conditioning programme. A coach does not lift a team by handing out more forms; the coach rebuilds the systems, the edge and the culture. The Bill asks the same of South African advisers: build the systems, governance and culture that produce fair outcomes by default, so the advice business becomes harder to beat.
Conduct is a team game in which the regulator is not your coach. As Anton Swanepoel reminds us, the right people in the right seats matter more than rigid rules.
The advice businesses that came through the transition in good shape did not buy a bigger compliance manual. They ran a handful of business-management disciplines and put the evidence on the field:
The biggest takeaway is that the advisers who adapted best could evidence five things: they know their clients, they know the outcomes those clients seek, they run a repeatable advice process, they monitor whether clients achieve those outcomes, and they can prove all of it.
So, when the Springboks and All Blacks meet at Ellis Park, the most important contest between the two nations in 2026 may not be the Freedom Cup. It may be which country’s advisers turn conduct into a competitive advantage. New Zealand has had a two-season head start — but South African advisers get something the Springboks never do before a Test: the chance to watch the replay first. Use it.
FSP Business 4.0 sits in the assistant coach’s seat. We coach offence — the business management and growth that build a stronger advice business. We coach defence — the governance, conduct and COFI readiness that keep you on the right side of the referee. Do not wait for the final whistle on the Bill. Start training now, while you still have the replay. Begin at www.fsp40.com.
Success leaves clues. After three decades of international benchmarking, the habits of the world’s best advice businesses are remarkably consistent. They do not win because their markets are kinder or their advisers cleverer. They win because they run the business with deliberate discipline.
The gap is wide. Schwab research puts revenue growth at the leading United States advice businesses at 17.6 per cent a year against 8.3 per cent for the rest. In Australia, Business Health finds the high performers earn about three times the profit of the average advice business. That is the difference between an advice business that funds a comfortable retirement and one that merely survives.
So what are they doing? Five disciplines stand out — and each is backed by hard numbers.
The pattern is clear. High performers are not doing one heroic thing — they are doing five ordinary things consistently. The others dabble. The best embed.
For South African advisers the timing is perfect. The disciplines the global leaders live by are the ones the Conduct of Financial Institutions framework will soon expect, while the local gaps are plain: FSP benchmarking shows fewer than 40 per cent of South African advice businesses have a fully documented advice process. Closing that gap is both a compliance win and a profit win.
Stop guessing. Take the Business Management MRI at FSP40.com. It measures you against the same foundations the world’s best already live by, and shows you where to start. Success leaves clues — follow them.
South Africa’s Conduct of Financial Institutions framework will pull conduct rules now scattered across the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act and other statutes into a single outcomes-based regime, building on the Twin Peaks structure of the Financial Sector Regulation Act of 2017. The United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have already made this shift, and their experience carries one message: the real work is business readiness, not box-ticking. The framework judges the advice business, not only the adviser.
The United Kingdom’s Consumer Duty, in force since 31 July 2023, requires advice businesses to prove good outcomes across products, price, client understanding and support. South Africa’s six Treating Customers Fairly outcomes ask the same. New Zealand’s regime, live since 31 March 2025, goes further: each institution must run a written fair conduct programme that is embedded and monitored, not left in a drawer. A tidy compliance file no longer protects an advice business that delivers a poor result. Start capturing evidence of suitability and client understanding from your very next meeting.
The United Kingdom’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime and Australia’s Financial Accountability Regime make named individuals answerable for conduct and culture. South Africa’s framework places the same responsibility on the governing body and key persons. Decide now who owns conduct and culture — then write it down.
Both markets expect advice businesses to define a target market, test that products suit it, and treat complaints as conduct-risk intelligence rather than administrative noise. Map the products you recommend against the people you serve, and act where outcomes fall short.
In every market that has crossed this bridge, the advice businesses that thrive are not those with the cleverest compliance department, but those that are simply well managed. A clear strategy, a defined client, a designed and evidenced service, controlled incentives, real governance, and systems that produce evidence as a by-product of normal work — these satisfy the regulator and build enterprise value at once. Such a business is not avoiding scrutiny; it is built for it.
Treat the framework not as a threat to survive, but as a blueprint for the advice business you should already be building. Start now, while it is still a choice:
The advice businesses that move first will meet the new regime from strength — and inherit the clients of those who leave. The road is already mapped. Walk it by choice.
Every article in this edition lands on the same point: conduct readiness and good business management are the same job. The framework rewards advice businesses that are simply well run, and the world’s best already run on the disciplines it expects. You do not have to choose between getting compliant and getting better. Doing both at once is the cheaper path — if you start from a clear picture of where you stand.
That is why we built two assessments, and why they are strongest used together. Think of them the way a coach prepares a team to defend and to attack.
Measures your advice business against the conduct foundations the regulator looks for: who owns conduct and culture, whether your advice process is documented and evidenced, how you govern products and complaints, and whether you can prove fair outcomes. It shows where play would be blown up before the referee arrives.
Start the COFI AssessmentMeasures your advice business against the foundations the world’s best live by: a written strategy, a defined ideal client, a designed and repeatable service, controlled costs, purposeful technology, and a plan that outlasts the founder. It shows where the profit and enterprise value are hiding.
Start the Business MRIRun on their own, each is useful. Run side by side, they turn a vague sense that you should get ready for COFI into a single ranked list of what matters most, with the gaps that are both a compliance risk and a profit drain fixed first. The same documented advice process that satisfies the framework also cuts the time you spend per client. The same clear proposition that proves suitability also lifts retention and margin. One piece of work, two payoffs.
Advisers in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand who came through this well did not wait to be told where they stood. They found out early, built a plan, and worked it while it was still a choice. You have the rare advantage of watching the replay first. The first step is simply to know the score.
Three markets have walked this road ahead of us, and each teaches the same lesson. Run the COFI Readiness Assessment and the Business Management MRI together, and turn the replay into your game plan.