Probably the biggest reason the banking royal commission exists is because of the litany of financial planning scandals which have cost many thousands of people their life savings.

To the industry's enormous discredit, Royal Commissioner Ken Hayne, has a lot of material to work with.

Watching closely from the sidelines is Bernie Ripoll, the man whose inquiry into the collapse of Storm Financial set the ball rolling to try to make financial planning a profession that could stand beside other professions like law, accounting, medicine and engineering.

Despite nearly 10 years of reform, Mr Ripoll believes it's not there yet.

"Financial planning doesn't have professional standards, a code of conduct, defined educational standards and the commitment to a fiduciary type duty to customers that real professions have," lamented the former Labor MP.

"When it comes to financial services, people don't trust the system or the sector, or for that matter, really, government to be able to protect them fully and properly."

Problems highlighted by a recent ASIC survey which found 79 per cent of financial advice still breached the Corporations Act.

"A large number of financial advisers are still tied within the major institutions and maybe the question is, are the systems they are working in supporting them giving advice that is in their clients' best interests?" questioned Claire Mackay, the principal of independent advice firm Quantum Financial.

Who do financial planners work for?

Ten years ago, financial planning was an industry out of control.

It was riddled with conflicts. It was hard to know whether the planner was working for the customer, or him or herself.

For example, clients of Storm Financial lost around $3 billion, while, among other things, the big banks and AMP are accused of charging hundreds of thousands of people for advice they didn't receive.

"We've got evidence of that failure, not just through the GFC, but in the collapses we've seen, whether it be Storm Financial, Opes Prime or a long, long laundry list of many others," argued Mr Ripoll.

In 2009 Mr Ripoll led a parliamentary inquiry which took the first steps towards trying to fix a mess which cost many thousands of people their life savings.

What emerged was the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms which banned commissions on superannuation products and introduced the "best interests duty" — trying to force financial advisers to put their clients' interests ahead of their own.

"There was a lot of push back … whether it was best interests, conflicted remuneration and a whole range of other elements that really was about changing culture," Mr Ripoll reflected.

The pushback included the Abbott Government trying unsuccessfully to gut the FOFA reforms, but as the scandals kept coming, including horror stories from Commonwealth Bank financial planning and others, FOFA survived.

An issue at the heart of the industry's problems is education, or the lack of it.

"The base levels for the current education is a lot lower than virtually any other industry that's out there, for example hairdressing," said Associate Professor, Adrian Raftery, from the Deakin Business School.

"You can be a car salesman one week and effectively do a 34-hour course and be a financial adviser the next week."

Refusal to abandon conflicts

A new government body called the Financial Advisor Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) has been created to fix that — a degree will be the minimum standard — from 2024.

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority is also being created to streamline disputes handling — it will start work in November.

And the terms "financial planner" and "financial adviser" have been enshrined in legislation.

"Clients are also far more savvy than they were 10 years ago and they are putting a lot of pressure on us to improve, and that's a great thing," Ms Mackay said.

But probably the biggest issue, though, is that most financial planners refuse to abandon conflicted payments, such as so-called "asset-based fees" and commissions.

That means they're not being paid just for their advice, but for how much money you've invested, or what they can sell you.

In submissions to a review of how accountant financial planners are paid, it's plain the industry is not in favour of change.

For example, the Association of Financial Advisers strongly recommends against any ban on life insurance commissions or asset-based fees.

"I guess it's a bit concerning that they are against a fee for service," Mr Raftery said.

"Commissions have been the bane of the whole industry and the lack of trust mums and dads have towards financial advisers."

Nine years after the Ripoll inquiry the financial planning industry still hasn't finalised a code of conduct, professional standards and the fiduciary duty we see in the legal world and so, in Bernie Ripoll's eyes, it's not yet entitled to be called a profession.

On the other side of the coin, there's an increasing number of genuinely independent, fee-for-service financial planners who are showing the industry there is a better way.