FASEA has revealed the pass rate among advisers listed on ASIC’s Financial Adviser Register (FAR) stood at 76 per cent at the end of September, meaning 14,630 advisers on the FAR were successful in overcoming the FASEA hurdle.
However, as many as 24 per cent of FAR-listed advisers have yet to do so.
According to FASEA, overall, 88.5 per cent of advisers who have sat the exam have passed, or 16,850 in total.
To date, 2,226 unsuccessful candidates have re-sat the exam, with 66 per cent passing at a re-sit.
Over 1,500 advisers have booked for the November exam, to be held in metropolitan and regional locations and online from 11 to 16 November 2021.
Analysis of the September exam data revealed areas advisers struggled with most included the real-world application of Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act 2001 and understanding the code of ethics.
Mental health struggles
Earlier this month, Lifespan Financial Planning head Eugene Ardino told ifa that advisers, particularly senior planners, have faced mental health struggles as a result of the exam.
“An exam that quite frankly, in many cases, doesn’t have a lot to do with giving advice, a lot of it’s very academic,” Mr Ardino said.
“And that creates a lot of self-doubt and is leading to a lot of advisers suffering mental health issues as a result.”
Similarly, adviser Tony Machin told the ifa in September that experience is mostly irrelevant when tackling the FASEA barrier, with low pass rates inflicting anxiety on most.
“The November exam last year, there were nine blokes my age or around my age, from 51 to 67. Minimum of 25 years’ experience in the industry, they all failed the November exams,” Mr Machin recalled.
“But there was a 25-year-old, first-year adviser doing his first year, he passed. So, that proved to me that experience, what we would do, is irrelevant to passing the exam.”
If you would like to share your FASEA journey, please write to us on editor@ifa.com.au
An exam is an exam and there was a need for this one to be launched. Throughout life we have all had to do exams that for one reason or another we may not have agreed with but we just did them. On-going education is a necessity and all education has to be tested to make sure that any participant actually did the learning. And as we know most CPD points aren’t earned in any really structured reliable manner. Unfortunately it was normally the “senior” ( is that age, length of service or education?) who fudged their way through the 10 minute quizzes or simply attended the full session.
the exam is subjective & ambiguous basically it should have been CPD not an exam
CPD can easily be rorted, an external exam not so much… which is why we are seeing all these ‘great’ advisers who have never failed anything & who know all that they need to know, failing the FASEA exam…what a surprise…not!!
the system was designed to get rid of advisers.
Correct. And thank god. It was about time to trim some fat.
I concur.
And what a good thing that is. If you havent passed the exam by now, with multiple chances to pass & an extended deadline by a year, you probs shouldnt be giving advice…
I again concur.