The watchdog took the action against Farber after it discovered that he was not adequately trained or competent to provide a financial service and that he had failed to comply with financial services laws.

Life insurance is an important channel for wealth management in Australia and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

Farber, in particular, did not act in his clients' best interests in the course of providing financial product advice; he engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct in relation to backdating a number of statements of advice ; failed to provide SOAs to clients within the required timeframes and relied too much on template SOAs containing pre-populated information and failed to adequately disclose information regarding product replacement, ASIC said in a statement.

“Consumers should be confident that their financial advisor is acting in their best interest. The business model of simply 'selling' life insurance without complying with the legal and regulatory obligations will not be tolerated by ASIC and advisors who do so will be removed from the industry,” said ASIC's deputy chairman, Peter Kell.

Farber was, in the period from 23 December 2011 to 31 May 2015, an authorised representative of Risk Advice Specialists Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Macquarie Group.

Risk Advice Specialists Pty Ltd has advised ASIC that it has ceased to trade and has commenced action to cancel its Australian financial services licence. Farber has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC's decision.

Two-year ban

In the second case, ASIC banned David Hodgson, of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, from providing financial services for two years after the watchdog said its investigation found that Hodgson, a director of Exalt Global Funds Limited, failed in his duty to ensure that Exalt complied with its obligations as a “responsible entity” under the Corporations Act.

Exalt has held an Australian financial services licence since September 2011.

During the period March 2013 to July 2014 Exalt was found to have:

- Made misleading statements in product disclosure statements. These documents made statements to the effect that an investment in the Paladin Monetizer Fund was low risk when such statements were false;

- Failed to have kept proper financial records for the Paladin Monetizer Fund .

The firm also failed to lodge with ASIC annual profit and loss statements and balance sheets for Exalt for the financial years ended 30 June 2013 and 30 June 2014. It also did not lodge financial reports and and a director's report for Exalt and the Paladin Monetizer Fund for the financial years ended 30 June 2013 and 30 June 2014, ASIC said.