The Financial Advisers Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) has once again cited the areas advisers struggled with in the latest FASEA exam, with three of the Standards, ethical obligations, understanding client best interests and understanding the difference between types of advice as key areas.
FASEA released the results of the August exam on Wednesday which saw 82% pass, which was 2% lower than the average of 84%.
The exam tested three areas of knowledge: financial advice regulatory and legal requirements, financial advice construction, and applied ethical and professional reasoning and communication.
In financial advice regulatory and legal requirements, advisers struggled with:
- Demonstrating an understanding of the difference between personal advice, general advice and factual information and how they apply to different client scenarios;
- Assessing whether advice recommendations meet the client’s best interests; and
- Assessing the impact conflicts of interest may have on advice recommendations.
In financial advice construction, advisers struggled with:
- Identification of client biases and how they may influence clients’ financial decisions and/or investment choices; and
- Understanding the context of client requests for advice and how this may impact advice construction.
In applied ethical and professional reasoning and communication, advisers struggled with:
- Applying Standard’s Two, Four and 12 of the Code of Ethics to advice scenarios; and
- Demonstrating an understanding of an adviser’s ethical obligations when advising on complex family structures.
It was the second time that FASEA had released details on the problem areas with exam, previously doing so after the June exam.
Registrations for the November exam, the final one of 2020, was open until 16 October.
FASEA previously announced six sitting dates for 2021, which would be held in 31 locations across the country.
