The securities regulator has moved to improve the training requirements for financial product advisers.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced the release of an updated version of ‘Regulatory Guide 146 Licensing: training of financial product advisers’ (RG 146), which sets out the minimum training standards for financial product advisers and explains how advisers can meet them.
The main issues addressed deal with the appropriateness of training standards for services provided and whether RG 146 has adequately recognised prior study and training.
ASIC has decided to amend RG 146 to make training requirements more flexible for products that are relatively straight forward and do not involve an investment component. It has also clarified ASIC’s capacity to deal with non-compliant courses.
ASIC will maintain the current requirement that advisers be trained across the range of products within existing specialist knowledge categories, and the existing policy that recognises prior study and training.
The revisions to RG 146 follow on from the issues raised by industry stakeholders and reflected in the ‘Corporate and Financial Services Regulation Review — Proposals Paper’ released by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, Chris Pearce, in November 2006.
