Financial advisers can play a critical role in helping to disrupt financial scams, according to the Financial Markets Authority’s Head of Financial Advice, Romil Ghelani.
As part of his address to the Financial Advice NZ Connect Tour 2025 in Auckland recently Ghelani told the 200 attendees that the FMA publishes a series of warnings around financial scams, including deepfake videos which impersonate well known New Zealanders.*
He says these scams do trick people into sending money and the FMA was also seeing scams around fake investment managers and fake investment platforms.
He also pointed to ‘recovery’ scams and ‘romance’ scams.
Ghelani’s call to action was for advisers to:
- Get the FMA updates which explain new scams
- Share these updates with your clients, especially clients who you think are more vulnerable
*On August 19 2025 the FMA issued a warning stating that: “Scammers are using Facebook pages to impersonate New Zealand financial commentators and business leaders, including Carmel Fisher, Frances Cook, Mike Hosking and Gareth Morgan. These pages use deepfake videos to promote free investment advice WhatsApp groups and encourage victims to invest in fake online investment platforms.”