Under FASEA’s Relevant Providers Degrees, Qualifications and Courses Standard, advisers are required to complete a bachelor, or higher or equivalent qualification. The determination includes a list of current and historical degrees approved by FASEA.
FASEA said the standard was informed through consultation with stakeholders in March and June, and through 92 formal submissions during FASEA’s consultation process in November.
Further, it noted that stakeholder feedback during the consultation raised a number of suggestions has adopted in the final Legislative Instrument, Explanatory Statement, Education Pathways Policy and Accreditation Policy, including:
- approval of the newly formed Bachelor of Commerce (Finance and Financial Planning) at Curtin University;
- approval of the re-accreditation of Western Sydney University’s Bachelor of Accounting Financial Planning or Financial Planning and Taxation and Master of Financial Planning;
- the addition of financial planning (which includes financial advice areas of superannuation, retirement, insurance, estate planning etc) and investments (which include all types of investment e.g. shares, derivatives, foreign exchange, options etc) to the relevant degree definition;
- recognition of prior learning: advisers holding a non-relevant degree who have completed between four and seven of the relevant degree knowledge areas will be awarded two credits; and
- the definition of single units of study as about 120 hours of learning as per the AQF (e.g. eight course graduate diploma and 24 course degree).
What no one seems to be addressing is the fact that the degrees and diplomas teach almost nothing that’s of any practical value or use to Adviser or client. In over 20 years in Advice and Adviser management, no Kaplan, University, Pinnacle, Finsia, Tribecca or the-like have provided me with any useful knowledge or skills whatsoever. The experience and other readings have. The education providers have provided me with useless books full of outdated and unuseful theory, and expensive bills. So what’s the benefit to client, adviser or industry in completing further studies?
WB, Your comments echo my main concerns exactly. I’ve no idea what this idiocy from FASEA is in aid of regarding making pure risk advisers having to do the same as full investment advisers. Seems they aren’t too smart to me. It is like having a GP forced to upskill to be a proctologist just because the AMA has nothing better to do that month. Yep, don’t know how this can be allowed to happen but this exact point is why I’m leaving in 2020 after 34 years of risk advising. Seems FASEA thinks I need more qualifications (in an unrelated area) to continue to look after my precious clients. Maybe they think I’ve forgotten all my knowledge by now – 34 years is a long time, yes, maybe they think I need a refresher . . . IN DERIVATIVES and CURRENCY EXCHANGE??!! They are abject idiots who need to explain themselves quick smart! They should be ashamed of themselves for this lack of explanation and so should the govt for allowing this absolute nonsense. I’m definitely out because of this if they don’t wake up and change the qualification for riskies Vs investment planners and I know that many other riskies over 45 will be too. This issue is bigger than the media let on in their ‘surveys’.
I have relevant degree, also need 12 core units from that, 10 I did, got exemptions for the other 2 due to prior study. One exemption was “introduction to fp”. That mean I have to do that now? Don’t even know where to ask such questions
Yep, I’m in the same boat and I reckon the vast majority of planners with FP degrees are in the same position. I’ve tried to get exact numbers from my uni and they refused to provide figures. They say they support past students and they have been working with FASEA to help us. Yeah right, they want our money and FASEA have given the unis a Christmas gift at massive expense to us. FASEA has blatantly breached their mandate to help themselves and mates with affiliations to unis, by forcing us to complete totally unnecessary study; and these are the people who reckon we need to complete a course in ethics!
Not just affiliations to unis. One of the FASEA Board members actually works for an ethics course provider. Even advisers who have already completed postgrad level courses in ethics are being forced to pay up again.
FASEA would make a great illustrative example of conflicted and unethical behaviour to include in his course.
FASEA reminds me of the John Cleese movies on “How not to do something” in order to get the point accross. After this FASEA Farce I think we all know what conflicted and unethical means…we wont need to do a course!
What the powers that be dont understand is that when a client goes to an adviser for advice and follows through on the advisers advice they will be protected by all the compliance, regulation and insurances that the adviser is obligated to do/have.
Why would an adviser do all this compliance and extra study, when this same advice can be given by someone who is called a Money Coach.
Just change the name of you occupatuon to Money Coach, charge the client directly (as we have to do now anyway) and then you are free to recommend anything you want without the SOA, Best Interests Duty, Professional Indemnity Insurance, a compliance staff member for every adviser, CPD points and best of all no ability to be sued when things go wrong as you didnt provide specalised advice and are not a financial adviser who get blamed for everything as we were the low hanging fruit for lawyers and ASIC.
I find it soooooooooo funny that the sales process i mentioned above is what will be the result of FASEA and clients will be lucky if they even get the protections provided by General Advice advisers.
Why would someone want to be waste time studying and especially on the compliance which comes with being a qualified Financial Adviser when anyone can do exactly what we do just without any protections provided by SOA’s etc.
Raising professional standards is always met by those resistant to change (i.e. those who have no professional standards). In the end, the new standards will greatly benefit Australians who have been mostly victims of financial planners.
But wait, if this is “the degrees, qualifications and courses to be regarded as relevant to become an adviser” then clearly this is for new advisers, hence limited scope of courses so far approved. Surely this cannot be the comprehensive list of “acceptable related degree courses” already completed by existing advisers. I just cannot see how my UNSW Bachelor of Commerce 1974 and University of Sydney Master of Business Administration 1986 could possibly be regarded as “non-relevant degrees”. Curtin and WSU are “johny come lately wannabees” compared to UNSW and Sydney Uni.
I’m in the same boat with my 1991 B.Com, and later Diploma & Advanced Diploma – the only FASEA list I have found so far seems to be for current relevant degrees. As an existing adviser, we need to know what historical degrees are considered “approved” or “relevant” to fit in the Existing Adviser pathways. If they can’t release this information in a timely manner we need extensions to work out what the heck is going on.
Vicki, if it’s not on the list now… it’s not considered a “relevant” degree. Essentially for a Commerce/Finance Degree to be considered “relevant” it must have included a “Financial Plan construction style of Unit” completed in order for the Higher Education Provider to meet FASEA conditions. This therefore rules out any Graduates with a Business, Commerce, Finance, Economics Degree even if the Units covered were very much financial planning related. In short a money grab.
FASEA needs to be scrapped asap. I have a Bachelor of Commerce and completed the following subjects at AQF level 9 as part of a post graduate course.
• Fundamentals of Portfolio Management
• Superannuation and Funds Management
• Industrial Equity Analysis
• Financial Markets and Economics
• Financial Analysis and Valuation
• Superannuation and Retirement Planning
• Taxation and Strategies for Financial Planning
• Financial Analysis and Valuation.
The Commerce degree and the Post graduate study are considered a non relevant degree. Only Higher Education providers can put forward courses and I’ve been informed they won’t be. Clearly it’s in their interest to not put forward courses for listing with FASEA to encourage new courses fees.
Why the hell does an adviser who ONLY wants to specialise in insurance advice, have to spend thousands of dollars learning about derivatives FASEA???
One, I don’t want to advise in this space.
Two, I know it’s not an area I have the skill set for.
Thirdly, you rogues, I don’t want to spend hours and hours of extremely valuable time bogged down by paperwork and compliance checklists you’ve created completely unnecessarily, when I could be spending it far more effectively with risk insurance clients.
How in God’s name can this be allowed to happen???
because we are power hungry little minions who have been given the power.
Christmas is always a great time to slip out media releases you don’t want feedback on until its too late…well played FASEA, not really ethical but you can’t have every thing can you.
Sly. Cunning. Ignorant. Foolish. Irresponsible. Abhorrent. Six words I use to describe FASEA.
Nice how they ‘conveniently’ role this out when no-one is around to contest it.
This is an absolute farce and the people at FASEA that have put this together should hang their heads in absolute shame if they honestly think this adds any positive value to the industry or benefits consumers.
You WILL have blood on your hands with this FASEA IF its gets up in Parliament as I have very real concerns advisers will take their own lives as a consequence of this.
I just prey the insanity of it leads to it being defeated in Parliament.
So if my degree/university is not on the list, my degree is considered not relevant?
Unfortunately as someone with both a Bachelor of Business and Master of Commerce that aren’t on the list that is my understanding. I’m hoping I’m not but I think it is time to become an accountant or a real estate salesman,
Graduate Diploma of Financial Planning @ WSU:
Fees: $12,000*
Delivery: Online
ME:
I’m out.
There are 18,000 Financial Advisers in Australia.
0.072% of the population.
If you have more than 300 people on Facebook it becomes unmanageable – 80% of Australians get no financial advice.
The logical conclusion is that Robots is the only way to deliver advice to people. Insurance is structurally uprofitable in this country, hence the premium rises.
If you cannot see the writing on the wall you are a fool. Get out now.
you are right there are way too many advisers in the industry i think it should be no more than 5,000 humans the rest should be robots
Can’t wait to see the robots personal advice.
Absolute disgraceful decision making process at FASEA, what about we 60 year olds working in the industry mostly owning FP businesses that completed business degrees in late 70’s where there was no such thing as Superannuation, estate planning, or any financial planning subjects and none available at any University then, and we have completed all if not more CPD points over the last 40 years, the industry will lose a lot of experience due to your ignorance
Simple answer, retire! If you own your home, which you should by now and have adequate super, just move on and enjoy retirement. I can assure you it is busy but bliss!
FASEA’s “consultation” has resulted in some very minor tweaks. FASEA is still abusing its government bestowed power to force highly educated advisers to pay additional unnecessary course fees. Many of these course fees will go to providers connected to FASEA Board members. It’s time for a corruption investigation into FASEA.