Speaking at the FPA Professionals Congress, Leah Sciacca, a senior executive leader at ASIC, confirmed that advisers have until 1 July next year to register with the ASIC Financial Services and Credit Panel.
Joining Ms Sciacca in a session on regulation, FPA’s Ben Marshan revealed that a majority of advisers aren’t aware of this requirement — a theory he proved by asking participants to raise their hand if they are across the obligation.
“Not a lot of hands there,” Mr Marshan said.
Ms Sciacca explained that it is a new requirement, but one that advisers need to meet by 1 July.
“It is a new requirement and it’s in addition to [the FAR] … The feedback we’ve received is ‘I don’t need to be registered, I’m on the Financial Adviser Register’,” Ms Sciacca said.
The requirement came about as part of The Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal Commission Response – Better Advice) Act 2021.
“Some of the advisers will already be deemed registered as a result of being registered with the Tax Practitioners Board and others will not. Their licensee will need to go and register them,” Ms Sciacca said.
“Our sense of it, and the show of hands probably confirmed that awareness isn’t particularly high on this requirement.”
Earlier this month, the Albanese government announced a delay to the financial adviser registration requirement until 1 July 2023.
The requirement was previously due to come into force on 1 January.
At the time, Stephen Jones said that delaying the requirement would allow ASIC to improve the operation of the registration process with benefits for licensees.
In a separate statement issued by ASIC earlier this month, the corporate regulator said while it previously announced that registration would be available through ASIC Connect from October 2022, in light of the announced delay “ASIC has not opened the ASIC Connect portal for registration”.
“ASIC now expects AFS licensees will be able to register their financial advisers via the ASIC Connect portal in the second quarter of 2023.”
Ms Sciacca confirmed that ASIC does have a planned program of work, including an info sheet, which should launch a few months before the start date.
It was the same thing back in 2015/2016… lets start this new register and all of your PA advisers must be registered… and it cost you (memory serving) around $37 per person to do the work that an IT person could have completed by running a report in ASIC Connect to separate out the GA’s from the PA’s and set up the new register…. but nooooo. Is it because so many advisers have now left the industry they need another short term revenue stream and this will be how they do it? What a rort.
Hopefully, this ASIC Financial Services and Credit Panel register will be more accurate and up to date and replace the ASIC Adviser Register?
Good to see they are making it easier, lets add another registration with an associated cost and don’t tell anyone. If it didn’t impact me personally it’s would be funny that ASIC are this incompetenent.
What is becoming more apparent post RC is the role of the Fed Treasury and the power brokers that oversee financial regulation. There seems to be too much control being wielded with little if any consequence coming back. It appears to have kicked in via Hayne / Frydenberg and then followed to Hume interacting with these key controlling depts. of both ASIC, APRA, Productivity Commission and now the QAR that set and monitor economic policy. This is just another example of duplication and overkill that is of zero benefit to anybody, same as TMD’s etc. Nobody at these higher levels of key Govt. Depts. is stopping and fixing it, and certainly no consideration for what the consequences are at the adviser coal face. If both Stephen Jones and Jim Chalmers have any desire to improve the financial advice Industry, they need to intervene and fix it as a priority.
This will make advice even more affordable!!!
Trying oto assit reduce costs and cut red tape at ASIC , really
So this means we can do away with licensee’s right? I can’t think of any reason for why this is needed (nor why we need licensees). Ohh nope, it’s yet again another double up of compliance. Are ASIC so incompetent they cannot migrate the existing information on the Advisers register into the new portal? Thats OK, Advisers will pick up the tab for this I suppose.
Ummm… why not just set up a link from one register to the other?
Why do that when many more bureaucrats can make a massively well paid project?
Obviously some back office person somewhere did not recognise this as being overkill. Why have more than one register?? How are the ordinary people in the street going to know where to look for information? This really is taking red tape to the max. I thought we were going to be doing less (red tape) not more.
Can someone please take the time to explain???
Clever ideas to get rid of Advisers number 227. Another portal and another fee and another registration.
Let me guess, $110 per time, and I have to make many attempts to go through the many ASIC websites and portals.
Yes… why.
The way that the QAR is heading, we will all be unlicensed product floggers soon and won’t need any registration…
another fee no doubt
October 2021 – ASIC knew advisers were required to be registered on the ASIC Financial Services and Credit Panel by December 2022 (for what benefit, no-one knows)
November 2022 – Stephen Jones says he is delaying the registration requirement until July 2023, to “allow ASIC to improve the operation of the registration process”
November 2022 – ASIC fess up that their portal still wasn’t ready to allow advisers to register.
How can the public have any confidence in ASIC when after 12 months they can’t do something as basic as create an online registration portal?
But .. why ? Like .. what does it add? What’s the purpose …”well the purpose is further regulation via regi….” yeah yeah yeah, but it doesn’t actually help anything right ? Doesn’t increase the quality of advice .. just adds more tuurmoil and another annual membership that we’ll inevitably forget to renew.
No pointless duplication or red tape here.
All totally thought through so no unnecessary burden is placed on anyone.
Meanwhile the unregistered crooks just keep doing whatever they like and ASIC thinks it is entitled to take its time to deal with them, and then charge the honest ones for enforcement costs incurred.
WHY? That is all…….just WHY?
because they can, no reason needed…
This will help society how?
How do you even do it?
No well sign posted on the asic site
That’s because ASIC’s portal can’t handle it. Twelve months to get it ready? Just as well I can comply with my legal requirements in far less turn-around time than that.
So for the pleasure of this regulatory duplication the cost will be? The kicker is that this is then supposed to be an annual process for both licensee and adviser
What? Once on the register why on earth does this have to be repeated annually? Why have another register at all?
What a ridiculous waste of time and money for no added benefit. I had been trying to figure out if the ASIC FAR was being relocated or what was happening. Surely if ASIC has the details on the FAR they can be pre-populated into the other register. And that when one register is updated it is updated to both.
Nothing like a bit of duplication to further increase the regulatory burden.
Just another little fun activity for everyone