In a parliamentary joint committee on Friday (26 November), commissioner Danielle Press said ASIC is currently gearing up for its new responsibilities in support of the recently passed Better Advice Bill – which will see FASEA wound up and responsibilities passed to ASIC – and its plans for exams.
“With respect to the exam, which is also one that’s of great interest to the financial planning community, we are working with [Australian Council for Education Research] ACER to sign a new contract,” Ms Press said.
“As soon as that contract is signed, which is likely to be next week or the week after, we will be putting out to industry firstly when the exams will be…
“We are looking at having probably four exam sittings in 2022 and for those people that qualify for the extension to 30 September to pass the exam, they’ll have three opportunities to do so.”
With the legislation set to commence from 1 January 2022, Ms Press said clarity around how panels will be convened and how matters will be dealt with by the single disciplinary body will be shared with industry “very early next year”.
Requirements around the FASEA exam have been hotly debated in recent months, with head of advice strategy at MetLife Australia, Dr Jeffrey Scott, recently slamming it as “ridiculous”.
Speaking at the ifa’s inaugural Future Forum this month, Dr Scott said: “Asking advisers who have been in the industry for years to sit a three-hour university-style examination, when they haven’t sat an exam since high school, I think is ridiculous.
“Recognition of prior learning from an education point of view says we should take into consideration what the person has done previously and if they have no problems with their ASIC stuff and they’ve kept up with their CPD points, they’re doing all their education, then why do they have to sit the exam as well?”
Last month, FASEA 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.
I have worked several advisers from different licensees but I can assure you that this exam will just be getting rid of excellent advisers and keeping ones that have no idea about clients’ best interest at heart with very poor research skills especially on products and services to offer. The passing of exam will not make better advice delivery in my opinion. FASEA should have aimed at making this an annual requirement through CPD.
I pray the good folk from ASIC are listening to the feedback – as someone with a professional background in training this was the worst example of how to construct an exam – how to ask relevant questions – but probably the best run exam. – The variability and accuracy of subject matter were laughable – we had advisers low experience – no study – get through – and yet we also had very experienced business owners from allied skills that had absolutely no idea of how they measured up in the exam. Can we get a training specialist involved please? Being an adviser is really not that difficult – being a good decent adviser is not that difficult either. Using that exam as a baseline is ludicrous
you cannot legislate a conscience
Does passing the exam make soneone a better adviser?
First of all, I don’t think passing the FASEA exam will make a non-ethical adviser ethical, so defeats the purpose, but that’s another story.
Continuing to extend the deadline to allow sub-standard advisers the opportunity to remain within the industry further defeats the purpose of why the exam was introduced in the first place!
I apparently have further studies to do which I am ok with, however I might just wait until the last moment in case they also decide to remove the education standards!
FASEA has lost all credibility, however it looks like the baton has now been passed to ASIC to continue on with the guesswork.
So is that 3 attempts allowed or three chances to do one last exam?
[i]“We are looking at having probably four exam sittings in 2022 and for those people that qualify for the extension to 30 September to pass the exam, they’ll have three opportunities to do so.”[/i]
I also like how the fee has increased to sit the exam but they haven’t signed a new contract with ACER.. they may want more dollars? Couldn’t make this stuff up!
they haven’t signed a new contract because it was expected to be done and dusted now….yet here we are still taking about the exam.
Wow – first it was by 31 Dec 2020 – then it was by 31 Dec 2021 and now 30 Sept 2022!
You honestly expect Advisers to have any confidence any respect any faith in the Regulators of our Industry.
It is a farce.
What about the Advisers that, on good faith – accepted the Regulators timeframe for passing the exam, busted their a**** to achieve it – only to find the “deadline” wasn’t in fact a deadline.
The Sept 2022 deadline has been out for quite a while Gary. And its only available for those that have attempted the exam twice already and been unsuccessful. If you havent tried at least twice then next years final throw at the stumps is of no use to you.
Gary, only existing providers currently on the FAR who have failed the exam twice before 31/12/2021 get the extension into 2022 to try again. It’s a very small number and not an especially prestigious group one might think.
‘Gotta wear shades’ doesn’t understand the industry breath. Many advisers have scant financial planning activity, they “just” manage or advise on the money, with the overall strategy agreed at the outset. Their ability and/or interest in the minutiae of financial planning no measure of how prestigious they are – they may happen to be excellent money/portfolio managers/brokers – vanilla planning is mostly robotic anyways.
The whole fasea exercise has been farcical.
Our firm’s head of financial planning MFP, CFP etc said after all the steps, she is no more ethical for it.
Well when the government of the day are consistently accused of being chronic liars I guess the bureaucrats that run these organisations feel they can do what ever they wish.