The Albanese government has announced a delay to the financial adviser registration requirement until 1 July 2023.
A central registration requirement for financial advisers was originally introduced in The Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal Commission Response – Better Advice) Act 2021 and was due to come into force from 1 January 2023.
Registration was proposed to occur in two stages, beginning with a one‑off registration process administered by ASIC using the Financial Advisers Register (FAR).
The second stage was then set to commence once the FAR transitions to the Australian Tax Office as part of the Australian Business Registry Service.
“ASIC has been engaging closely with industry about how best to implement stage one, with a view to ensuring the obligation on licensees to register financial advisers operates as efficiently as possible,” Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones said in a statement.
“Through this engagement, ASIC has identified ways to improve the operation of the stage one registration process with benefits for licensees.”
Mr Jones said that delaying the requirement will allow the improvements to be implemented, and added that the registration obligation in stage one will remain with licensees.
ASIC Connect delay
In separate statement issued by ASIC, 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”.
“ASIC will publish guidance in advance of the ASIC Connect portal opening for registration. This guidance material will be accompanied by a set of webinars to assist industry comply with the new registration requirement.”
Who here believes that is being delayed because “ASIC has identified ways to improve the operation of the stage one registration process with benefits for licensees”?
My bet is that they don’t have a plan for how to do it yet, and have given themselves another 6 months to figure it out…
So they were too incompetent to complete the task by the due date.
So what’s the difference between this registration and the Financial adviser register or is this another of that geriatric fools idealism in duplicating everything so he could appear “smart”?
Can anyone please explain why we need another Adviser Registration besides the existing FAR ?
Seriously though, how many registrations do we need ? When we’re ready to get back to talking about servicing the needs of our clients .. let me know .. until then, these actions are contrary to any means of the word professional progress