About Jeff morris

Jeff studied Economics and Law at the University of Sydney and is a Certified Financial Planner. He has had nearly 30 years experience working in Financial Services including as a Taxation Manager at NatWest Bank and Deloitte & Touche Chartered Accountants, a Financial Consultant with the actuarial firm Towers Perrin and a Vice President of investment bank Bankers Trust Australia.

In 2008 he joined Commonwealth Financial Planning and rapidly became concerned about the severe losses and emotional distress being suffered by many elderly and vulnerable clients due to the poor advice they received. He became a Whistleblower to the Corporate Regulator ASIC in relation to financial planner Don Nguyen and Commonwealth Financial Planning.

Don Nguyen was subsequently banned from practicing as a financial planner for 7 years and seven other “rogue” planners were also banned. Commonwealth Financial Planning had a 2 year Enforceable Undertaking imposed on it, had to spend $25 million to bring its business up to scratch and to date has paid out over $50 million in compensation to the victims of its poor advice.

In June 2013 Jeff Morris blew the whistle again, this time on the bungling incompetence of ASIC in dealing with the information he provided to them. In a series of Walkley Award winning articles by Adele Ferguson and Chris Vedalago of Fairfax Media, it emerged that ASIC had failed to act on a fax sent by whistleblowers for over 16 months.

This scandal was the catalyst for a Senate Inquiry into ASIC that is due to deliver its findings on 30 May 2014. Jeff Morris provided over 150 pages of submissions to this Inquiry and testified in person on 10 April 2014. He hopes the findings will make a difference to the way ordinary Australians are provided with financial advice.

Jeff Morris and victims of Commonwealth Financial Planning appeared in the Four Corners documentary “Banking Bad” by Adele Ferguson and Deb Masters that aired on ABC TV on 5 May 2014. It is a powerful indictment of everything that is wrong with the sales based culture of some of our modern financial institutions.