Liberal MP slams ‘absurd’ FASEA exam process

In correspondence seen by ifa, Sydney adviser Hilton Woolf wrote to Liberal MP Craig Kelly earlier this month following two failed attempts at the FASEA exam. Mr Woolf said he had been given “no feedback regarding how I could improve in order to pass”, and had already passed the bridging course required to meet his education pathway.

“I am enormously distressed to find myself in a position where I might need to abandon a career that I have devoted my life to as I am unable to re-qualify,” Mr Woolf said.

The comments follow previous ifa reporting on the rising number of queries licensees and training providers are fielding around the lack of feedback provided by FASEA during the exam process.

Mr Woolf, who had been a financial planner for 35 years and suffered from a number of medical issues, said the government needed to “consider the impact and ramifications of imposing this exam on all members of the industry”.

“I fully understand the need to always improve standards, particularly given the scandals that emerged in the industry. However, for younger professionals, the FASEA exam is not as challenging as it is for someone my age and with my health challenges,” Mr Woolf said.

“There needs to be regard for individual circumstances including track record, number of years of ongoing compliance, initial academic qualifications and a range of other factors.”

In response, Mr Kelly said he agreed with Mr Woolf “100 per cent” and that “many of my colleagues feel the same”.

“We will be pressuring for change of this absurd policy,” Mr Kelly said.

FASEA came under fire around its handling of the exam and implementation of industry standards more broadly at a recent hearing of the House standing committee on economics, of which Mr Kelly is a member.

FASEA chief executive Stephen Glenfield told the committee around 400 advisers so far had had to re-sit the exam.

“What you see with those [re-sits] is their marks do increase, so [the advisers] have been doing the work to lift their standards,” Mr Glenfield said.

“It’s an inevitable part of this exam that not everybody is going to be at the level required, so the exam is doing its job to identify those people.”

Committee chair Tim Wilson suggested FASEA be obligated to attend regular oversight hearings as ASIC is obliged to do, to ensure proper scrutiny of the authority’s activities.

In response to ifa queries, Mr Kelly said progress had yet to be made on that score, but expressed his frustration at the lack of recognition provided to experienced practitioners under the FASEA regime.

“If the world’s most successful investor over decades, Warren Buffett, at the age of 89 wanted to give financial advice in Australia, we’d force him to do an exam and then force him to go off and do university courses,” Mr Kelly said.