Employing a financial counsellor
Financial counsellors are qualified professionals employed by financial counselling agencies to provide information, advice, assistance, advocacy and support to people experiencing or vulnerable to financial difficulty and/or with debt problems, to empower them to make informed choices.
Financial counsellors have extensive knowledge in a range of areas of law and policy including consumer law, credit law, debt enforcement practices, the bankruptcy regime, hardship policies and practices in a range of industries, internal and external dispute resolution schemes and government concession frameworks, and other specific areas. Financial counsellors are also highly skilled in working with people experiencing vulnerability in a supportive and empowering framework. A fundamental tenet is a focus on person-centred practice. This places the person at the centre of the engagement with control over the process and decisions.
Financial counsellors are employed by agencies – typically not-for-profit community organisations – that operate under specific sub-regulations of the Corporations Regulations 2001 and the National Consumer Credit Protection Regulations 2010. These sub-regulations permit the organisations to provide financial counselling services without holding a financial services or credit licence, subject to services being provided by trained, qualified and professionally accredited financial counsellors.
The conditions of the exemption require the financial counselling service to be free, independent and without conflict. The requirement for no conflict means industry cannot directly fund financial counselling positions, which are primarily funded by state or federal governments, or through philanthropic sources.
A financial counsellor is not a:
- financial planner
- financial advisor
- accountant
- finance broker
- legal advisor
- business advisor
- therapeutic counsellor
- case manager
Become an Agency Member
FCVic offers Agency Memberships for organisations that employ or engage financial counsellors and share a mutual interest in the work undertaken by FCVic.
Each Agency Member may appoint an Agency Representative. The Agency Representative must be a manager who has one or more financial counsellors reporting to them. The representative will be included in the email distribution list for Agency Members and receive access to member-only content through the FCVic website.
FCVic facilitates a network for Financial Counselling Agency Managers, designed to provide support and information to the managers of financial counselling programs across Victoria. The network meets five times a year via Zoom to discuss current issues, hear from guest speakers and provide feedback to FCVic.