Abstract
The findings reveal five key challenges which impeded the professionalism of financial advisors: (i) bias towards sales and self-interest rather than client service orientation, (ii) giving advice without a holistic understanding of clients, (iii) succumbing to irresponsible leadership pressure to sell at any cost or perish, (iv) failure to conform to the norm of due diligence and (v) struggle to reconcile the pressure to appear as an ethical financial advisor and the necessity of adequate product knowledge. The conflict between personal interest and professional duty, non-disclosure of fees and Commission charges, inadequate and selective client education, which disempowers and facilitates abuse and treating clients poorly and unfairly were identified as the four key challenges related to ethics faced by financial advisors. Given these results, an integrative framework with a holistic, multi-level solution and approach to developing and supporting ethical and professional financial advisors is proposed. Future research is necessary to validate or modify the proposed holistic and multi-level framework for developing financial advisors who demonstrate ethical capabilities and professionalism.