The Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP) said it “supports abandonment” of the financial adviser exam in its submission to Treasury on the consultation paper for adviser education standards.
The consultation paper — which closed off submissions last week — looked at options to “streamline the education requirements for financial advisers” and how the financial adviser exam can be improved, such as reducing the number of questions.
In its submission, the AIOFP said there is “no public benefit in maintaining such a contentious exam”.
“Given the loss of advisers and the current requirements for professional technical and ethical education, the imperative to continue with such a national exam no longer exists,” the AIOFP submission reads.
“Consumers are now better served by a cohort of professional advisers who actively subscribe to minimum competency standards and ethical behaviours.
Should the abandonment of the exam not be an option, the group called for a “significant review” of the current questions and forms, and suggested alternative options such as an “oral exam, role play and paper based”.
The AIOFP did, however, support the proposal to remove the tertiary education requirements for financial advisers who had passed the exam, had 10 years’ experience and a clean record of financial practice, and recommended that the period be extended through to 1 January 2026.
“The AIOFP does not consider its proposal to abandon the FASEA exam to be controversial,” the submission concluded.
“The FASEA exam is redundant for new entrants as they are all completing formal education at an AQF 7 level, for this reason a national exam of practitioners is no longer justified.
“The burden of an exam to test competency and knowledge for no additional accreditation or recognition is not present in any other industry or profession.
“When compared to other common law countries, Australia has acted alone in this regard.”
The release of the AIOFP’s submission comes after Shadow Minister for Financial Services, Stuart Robert, said the advice industry has failed to correctly address education standards for some time.
Appearing on a recent Momentum Media podcast, Mr Robert called out education standards in particular.
“So I’ve been doing this journey for a long time and the industry — the advice industry — couldn’t get itself together on education. Couldn’t agree,” he said.
“Hence, why FASEA was born. Now, FASEA is gone, thank goodness. Because where it landed, I thought was quite poor.
“I’d like to see the industry own its own education requirements, come together like the broking industry did, where the players all got together and all agreed.
To listen to the full podcast with Mr Robert, click here.
Passed the exam first time round- biggest waste of time and money. The study material did not in anyway improve my skill set and took valuable time away from my business and clients. Leave our industry alone and let us get on with looking after everyday Australians.
So, if the exam gets canned, does that mean I get a refund and have to return my framed certificate and remove the designation from my business card?
What does AIOFP stand for? Association of Irresponsible or Irrelevant ……..
The more I’ve read about their views and recommendations around testing, professional improvement, etc the more I question their relevance in improving the industry.
Even their recommendations for alternative “exam style” are not in keeping with 2022.
We need one strong professional forward thinking industry body to represent us and drive our professionalism and AIOFP is not te benchmark.
Drive our professionalism where exactly? Michelle Levy is currently in the process of reviewing who can provide advice to members of the public – and you should be aware that she does not see the need to have fully qualified professionally qualified Financial Planners charging fees for the work they do only – so please tell me – what is the point of the FASEA Exam post Michelle Levy?
The AIOFP membership is about to reduce by around 400…hence, their focus on their and their advisers own survival.
Just a pity our other associations didn’t support the rest of us like the AIOFP did …
The time for disputing this was in 2018…not 2022…….When you write exams, you need a certain failure rate. more than 10% it’s going to raise eyebrows. 1% might be considered a good exam. If everyone passed it’s a waste time we could have just sent people on a course so you need some failures….. In 2018 I said “what’s that failure rate for a successful outcome? So that means 200 to 2,000 Advisers will naturally fail…some people just can’t do exams….. I’m guessing a large portion of those failures are members of the AIOFP….you don’t ask these questions five years after the event.
The exam is not a test of competency. Those failing to pass the exam, that qualify in the other aspects for the provision of advice, need to be able to review their exam responses and refine their knowledge skills in those areas. the exam is basically unsupported and the questions are framed enabling individuals to arrive at various outcomes.
the question all relevant parties should be asking is whether those failing the exam should be provided with assistance once they have established the questions, and as such areas, they remain deficient in.
You can’t scrap the exam in the eleventh hour, particularly since the bulk of the adviser community have successfully passed! We have time however to work through a fairer outcome regarding education standards for experienced advisers. Minimum guidelines need to exist, so as unfortunate as it is for those who can’t pass the exam, so be it.
Michelle Levy it appears does not agree with your “minimum standard” and the FASEA Exam as a minimum standard – of what? It seem clear the exam has been developed by Bureaucrats who believe Financial Planner recommend retail over what they believe to be cheaper and superior performing Industry Funds and are attempting to re-educated Financial Planners in ethics and they believe we have none. If you don’t believe me, read Treasury’s submissions in the RC. The exam will prove nothing to these bureaucrats – that is a false hope.
It’s called [b]Regulatory Capture Corruption. [/b]
ASIC, Treasury, AFCA & FARSEA are all corrupted in their ISA Funds only support.
The exam is very easy to pass – 2/3 hours of study and I passed first time. If we are trying to increase the standards of our profession we can’t keep moving the goalposts, the exam should stay.
Any new university graduate will not have any issues studying for a few hours and then passing.
The only people that have failed are those who did not study and are not serious about raising the bar for our profession.
We are draining the swamp and getting out profession recognised. Anyone who does not support this is an enemy of the advice profession