In a statement on Thursday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said it has permanently banned Todd Karamian, the chief executive officer of North Sydney-based Bluepoint Consulting, from providing financial services and carrying on a financial services business after he falsified his financial adviser exam result.
ASIC found that in December 2021, Mr Karamian altered his Financial Adviser Certificate from a fail result to a pass result and sent the altered certificate to his licensee, Bluepoint Consulting, which was then subsequently provided to ASIC.
ASIC also found that Mr Karamian provided personal advice between 31 December 2021 to 9 September 2022 to 11 retail clients when he was not authorised to do so as he had failed the financial adviser exam.
“The ASIC delegate found that Mr Karamian is not competent and is not a fit and proper person to provide financial services,” the corporate regulator said.
According to ASIC, the ban prevents Mr Karamian from providing any financial service, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business, and performing any function involved in carrying on a financial services business.
Mr Karamian has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
ASIC explained that it identified Mr Karamian’s conduct through a “proactive review” of individuals who were listed as current financial advisers on the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) despite not having passed the financial adviser exam by 1 January 2022 or 1 October 2022 where the financial adviser qualified for the extension.
The regulator disclosed that as a result of this review, the relevant AFS licensees (or where necessary, ASIC) have corrected the authorisation status or cease dates of over 1,300 individuals.
Australian Financial Services licensees are responsible for updating the FAR within 30 business days following a change to a financial adviser’s information, including whether the financial adviser has passed or failed the FA Exam.
What did the people who cheated their exam working at KPMG get for in cheating on tests for mandatory training courses that included professional independence, auditing, and accounting?
Not saying what this guy has done is right, merely just looking at the repercussions in other industries for similar things.
Craziness!! I couldn’t imagine even considering doing that but I also don’t know his situation or desperation. I would have thought the solution is find a new career if you had a smallish business or were an employee or if a larger business hiring an adviser that had passed while the exam failed adviser/business owner moved to a BDM/manager role.
It’s also mind-blowing that one can be banned permanently for faking an exam certificate; while others get only for a few years for stealing money from clients and committing major fraud.
I think this says more about the quality of the exam and the matters that it sought to address and the fundamental failure of the teaching process to align with the exam methodology. Most amateur attempt – in fact one could rightly argue that is the singularly worst effort at examining clients I have seen in some 45 years of training and working professionally. ( and that is as an appropriately qualified and specialist trainer) An embarrassment really
Regulatory activity appears to be on the increase.
The irony of cheating on the exam that is about ethics…..
That’s sad.
This is the result of desperation for potentially a decent person who was pushed to do this. FASEA and the exam style has been pushing advisers out the game.
Thanks for the comment, Todd.
i completely understand your comments. Seems the Exams only purpose is to exclude.
Its mind blowing that he thought no one would check.