Data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has revealed there were 882 advisers who were still yet to pass the financial adviser exam at the end of 2021.
Answering questions on notice from Senator Susan McDonald, the regulator said data from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) showed 882 advisers qualified for the extension as they had failed the exam twice.
Some 333 of those sat the exam in February, which had a pass rate of less than a third, with 108 passing.
This left a total of 774 advisers who had to pass the exam in the May, July or November.
This figure was out of 17,563 advisers listed as ‘current’ on the Financial Adviser Register at the end of 2021, although this number had since fallen to 17,173. This included 130 advisers who had had their status changed to ‘ceased’ as a result of not having passed the exam by 1 January.
ASIC said it expected the number to fall further as the year went on and was conducting a review to ensure Australian Financial Services (AFS) licensees had made the required notifications to ASIC on the status of their advisers.
“Over 2022, ASIC expects that the number of financial advisers on the FAR will fall. This is because, by either 1 January, 2022 or 1 October, 2022 for advisers who qualified for the extension, all financial advisers who are ‘current’ on the FAR must have passed the exam.
“Any adviser who has not passed the exam by the relevant date must be ‘ceased’ on the FAR from that date.”
A second review would be conducted after 1 October, 2022 to identify any advisers who were eligible for the extension but had not completed the financial adviser exam. Any advisers who had not passed the exam by 1 October, 2022 would need to be shown as ‘ceased’ on FAR within 30 business days of 1 October, 2022.
