The Morrison government has confirmed that the panel will be chaired and assisted by the corporate regulator and made up of members in the industry appointed by the relevant minister.
The legislation will see the removal of the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) as an advice regulator and that FASEA be wound up with its responsibilities to be given to Treasury and ASIC.
The government has confirmed it will extend the exam cut-off date to 30 September 2022 for advisers who have attempted the exam twice prior to 1 January 2022.
“The government would like to thank the FASEA board and its staff for the work they have undertaken in setting professional standards for the financial advice industry and the important contribution towards improving the education, training and ethical standards in the sector,” a statement from government reads.
Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Financial Services Minister Jane Hume noted the vital role financial advisers have played through the COVID-19 pandemic, saying Australians who turned to their advisers for considered advice helped them “through the worst of the COVID-induced recession”.
“Ensuring that Australians can continue to access high quality, professional and affordable financial advice is incredibly important as we emerge from the pandemic and I commend this bill to the Senate,” Ms Hume said.
Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) CEO Dante De Gori said the legislation is a win for the industry and will allow advisers to focus on their clients and on the “challenge of providing financial advice to more Australians without the distraction of constant regulatory change”.
Mr De Gori added the changes will streamline regulation and help reduce costs for consumers as well as those in the sector.
“The past two years has been another period of significant reform that has overhauled the regulation and practice of financial advice in Australia,” Mr De Gori said.
The Better Advice Bill will also include new registration requirements for financial advisers, which FPA head of policy, strategy and innovation Ben Marshan previously raised concerns about during a Senate economics hearing in July.
Mr Marshan argued that because individual advisers do not have a relationship with ASIC or other regulators, they “won’t necessarily fully understand all their regulatory obligations”.
“We think it’s an important step to foster professionalism for the individual to be individually accountable including the registration process,” he said.
In August, Liberal MP Tim Wilson, who supported the bill, conceded he had reservations specifically about ASIC’s role as the single disciplinary body.
“I have ongoing concerns about the operations of ASIC and we hope under its new leadership that it will fulfil its function properly,” he said in Parliament.
“ASIC needs to make sure that it’s backing financial advisers, not undermining them.”
I will state this again FASEA is an absolute crock, 90% of the questions have absolutely NO relevance to what we do as an occupation , designed by people that have not and never will be at the coal face advising real people in the real world an absolute joke. When will Governments and bureaucrats wake up that they are destroying a great industry with bureaucratic rubbish. Pathetic wake up Australia
Dante who?
what is the future of an AFSL? If an adviser is registed with ASIC do they have their own PI insurance? Do they still need to be under an AFSL? asking for a friend
Reckon Dante has been promised a role with the new entity….for cooperating with O’DYWER/HUME….why else would you leave a 500k job unless the place is slowly dying due to no more Bank payoffs….he has never given advice or seen a consumer but is acting for them…..what a fraud.
Therein lies a part of the problem. To think that Dante is capable of and / or motivated to do the best for Advisers, is tantamount to insanity. Dante does the best for Dante – any other results are merely coincidental.
De Gori again shows his ignorance. These are meaningless changes, yet he is out there commending the government. You know, the same government which has decimated the advice industry with new taxes and layers of red tape.
leave the FPA and join the AIOFP and get some action with politicians and the petition on the Parlaiment House website to tell the politicians who have done over this industry to lower the cost of advice or why might not get voted back in. AIOFP have required status and works for the members.
Thanks Get a Grip and well said. Please all these smarties who passed the exam the first time just stop making ill informed comments about others. It just shows you have no life skills. Please stop whoever you are. From a non first timer
Don’t get your logic – how does passing the exam first time mean you have no life skills?
All I remember is seeing Mr De Gori’s appearance at the Royal Commission and following an examination of the complaints process, hearing Chief Justice Hayes say the industries associations “were incapable of being a code monitoring body”. That subsequent recommendation leading to where we are today. Lost was the chance of being self regulated by peers, with full control now being handed to the worst possible party….. ASIC. Surely, a once in a generation opportunity was lost. And here we have today the very same CEO standing up proudly saying “it’s a win for the industry”. Please explain?
Hit the nail on the head Michelle. I sat watching, and was appalled. Seems to have been forgotten.
Can we please amalgamate to one industry body? The FPA has become redundant, due to it’s continual blatant self serving. They once held the industry benchmark for professionalism, the CFP qualification which is now tainted by partnering with AMP and WBC idly standing witness at these institutions height of justified scrutiny from the regulator. The FPA again, did the same during and post banking royal commission, standing idly by, not advertising the benefits of good advice, not standing up to the overreach and administrative burdens now imposed on small business owners that have offered quality advice to thousands of clients for decades. We need an industry body that communicates for our dwindling industry that works with politicians and ASIC striving for a better systems and process’s to get better outcomes for our clients. This is our only chance to survive and see genuine change for the better.
Sadly, the vested self interest of the heads of these organisations will fight to remain seperate…thus restricting the already limited funds contributed in membership fees to fight ‘the good fight’ on our behalf.
I don’t understand why advisers that have failed twice get an extension. Surely two fails says something and not getting the pass with the time originally given is a bad sign. Rewarding the ill prepared!!
There is a big difference to being a regulatory bookworm student and passing a largely ambiguous exam not relevant in the majority to your specialty and being a great adviser with 30 years experience with great service and advice and zero complaints. Well done if you passed first time, does not make you a good adviser, just a good FASEA exam passer.
Not sure I agree with that. There is no such thing as a ‘good exam passer’. To become a ‘profession’ we all need to raise our game. To me the fact that they keep giving extensions just show that there keep lowering the bar and thus watering down the value of the profession.
Grant, as an example, how does being examined on “Applying legal requirements of the AML and CTF legislation to scenarios and case studies” apply to me as a purely risk adviser? Surely you would think there is some common sense left in this world to examine advisers on their chosen and restricted by license speciality? Do Orthopaedic surgeons sit for Brain surgery exams to be allowed to practice? And, there are plenty of good “exam passers” with degrees out there running around believe me. The universities pump them out each year. That does not make them good at what they passed an exam for…… The point is we are talking about advisers with 30 or more years of precious
knowledge, experience and exemplary skills and satisfied clients having to complete degree education requirements for absolutely zero benefit.
Appreciate your argument however:
1. We need an exam to be called a profession- trust you agree and there is no dispute there.
2. That the surgeons have their exams relevant to their skill is a reflection of a competent AMA (Australian medical Association).
3. That good riskies like yourself, have to study and pass irrelevant stuff is a reflection of a mediocre AFA/FPA. They allowed FASEA to be stacked with academics who set the curriculum (I learnt a new word – ethicist WTF?) – not practitioners without raising a murmur. Look how swiftly the MFAA/FBAA moved to defence their members interested when their trails were at risk.
4. Once we pass the exam- we are professionals not a tradies (which I learnt belatedly, we were till then)
The FASEA exam is about law and ethics. Advisers who say it’s not relevant to their “specialty”, are effectively saying law and ethics don’t apply to their specialty.
Tell me, if I work as a Financial Planner, or a sales rep for Australian Super, recommend Australian Super, Australian Super pays my salary (not the client), basically, I’m the Dr working for the Drug Manufacturer, and I discover that the vast majority of recommendation made to clients are for the in house product – am I in your eyes a Professional?
The inappropriate, conflicted, behaviour of union funds is no excuse for licensed advisers to be exempt from higher professional standards.
Ironically, you are using “whataboutism” which is actually one of the favourite techniques union funds use to deflect scrutiny of their behaviour. Hopefully a less biased and more competent regulator will hold union funds to account one day. But it’s a different issue.
The Financial Advisers employed by Union Super are still Financial Planners right – same as us – so what is this professional talk you talk about? I didn’t notice the FASEA exam having any effect on the “inappropriate, conflicted, behaviour of union funds..”. Seems to me that FASEA is a big fail on that front – sorry to say.
You don’t have to be an intrafund adviser to be recommending your own product. There are still plenty so-called ‘Indy’ practices that recommend their own branded (white label) MIS’ and yet somehow this is not considered a conflict? Also still have some massive product pushers such as IOOF and ever brand that sits under it, and let’s not forget AMP.
Before you get on your high horse and start having a go at advisers who haven’t got through, maybe you need to understand their situation and what they might be going through personally. Don’t drag fellow colleagues down, how about a bit of understanding and empathy and look at each individual situation before criticizing anyone else. Show a bit of courtesy and compassion and lets support each other not bring anyone down.
Disagree. As someone that has passed the FASEA exam, and have years experience and a Masters Financial Planning, I walked out of the FASEA exam with no idea whether I passed or not.
I didn’t really learn anything from doing the exam and don’t believe it proves/disproves whether I am good at my job.
Exactly!
So no real degree then.
We have just paid several hundred dollars per planner for 3 year TPB renewal. Will this be refunded I wonder?
I don’t think so Tim, from what I read on the TPB site it isn’t counted as a “membership fee” but an “application fee” and hence no refunds – but I would love to be proved wrong!!
Correct, I had exactly the same. Another rort.
Tim I am sure it will be under the christmas tree this year next to your shiny red bike.
It will be credited towards the ASIC registration that will come into effect with the removal of the TPB oversight, according to Ben Marshan.
TPB removal won’t change the requirements to re: Tax (Financial) Adviser, just change who oversees it, and to whom we pay our fees.
What planet is Dante De Gori on if he thinks this is a win for industry, “without the distraction of constant regulatory change?” I would say this is the start of more change…with ASIC & Treasury looking over you shoulder. If you really think that is a great out come you should resign now, the FPA has sold out it’s members all throughout this fiasco!
He and the FPA are certainly in their own planets and not the same one that financial advisers have to work in.
Seems like Dante is trying to write his own place in history by claiming that this is both a victory for advisers and an end to regulatory change.
What an absolute crock! This is not a single disciplinary body at all. It is just another regulator on top of the many other regulators. Professional advice is still hamstrung by layers and layers of bad regulation. Genuine regulatory reform hasn’t even started yet, let alone finished.
If Dante is trying to claim the deceptively named “Better Advice Bill” and “Single Disciplinary Body” as crowning glories of his time at the FPA, then that is proof of how much of a failure his tenure has actually been.
Great to hear from you Dante….supporting/congratulating the clowns in Canberra rather than your fee paying advisers. Please, go early!