86% of advisers who sat the December Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) exam passed.
The pass rate maintains the generally high levels recorded in previous exams.
The authority announced today that of the 2981 advisers sat the exam in eight metropolitan and 11 regional centres.
Commenting on the result, FASEA chief executive, Stephen Glenfield said the authority was pleased with the outcomes of the third exam.
He noted that unsuccessful candidates were able to resit the exam and would receive guidance on which knowledge areas they needed to improve.
Comments
Under current arrangements:
- All licensed advisers need to receive confirmation they have passed the FASEA exam before the end of this year
- FASEA takes about 6 weeks to mark the exam so it will be too late to sit it in December
- There is no exam scheduled for November
- The last possible date to successfully complete the exam is therefore October this year.
If you want to sit prior to October just in case you fail and have October as a fall back, then the latest date to do so is June. There is a 3 month exclusion period between attempts and there is no exam scheduled for July.
Congrats to the 86% who passed an exam by an authority that no member of the public actually knows about and an authority that can't provide answers or explanations to how their code works and to an authority that doesn't have the capability to enforce anything. They'd be better off donating the money that FASEA, Kaplan and others are making out of this mess to bushfire victims.
2981 advisers at $600 a pop. A cool $1.8mil revenue injection. The distinct ethical glow that now surrounds the 86% will no doubt protect clients from evil.
Please note that FASEA also receives $3.9m pa of industry funding (from the banks, AMP et al) and in 2018/2019 spent $1.7m on "standards development & implementation" (taken from their annual report), a significant proportion which went to ACER. There is no disclosure on how much FASEA provides to ACER to administer the exam, but it's a significant amount. Surely it can't cost $600 per exam sitting, so where is the money going? Further, not that revenue from the exam is not accounted for in the financials as these are paid to ACER directly. Someone is making a lot of $$$ out of this exercise.
All these high pass rates show is that an exam was not necessary. Any Adviser who has sat the exam knows it did not contribute one iota to making them a better Adviser. I want to know where all the money is going for these exams... to follow the money trail.
That's not right. 14% fail rate is about the same rate for University subjects - in particular G8 Universities if you know what that is. Moreover the exam fail rate is increasing. Tell us all about the fact this was not necessary when it's over, not 1/3 of the way through the game.
The money trail never lies!!!
As one of the fortunate 86%, I gave the exam all the attention it deserved. And by that I mean I didn't do any study leading up to the exam at all, and left half way through the exam. The content is easy but the questions are terribly worded. I genuinely had no idea whether I would get 10% or 100%. Easily the least professional exam I have ever sat.
Well I studied and used up all the exam time and did not pass.
You will be fine next time. Now you know what to expect. Time is very tight for the number of questions and some of the questions are quite ambiguous. Do the Kaplan prep course, that's what I did.
Dont waste your time again. Use AirTasker and get a uni grad to sit it for you, I feel so good inside that i passed their unethical exam using the same tactics they used to extract money from us for nothing.
I find it amazing that advisers (the only ones who were ever ethical in the first place) are forced to do this exam when the bankers, polititians and blood sucking lawyers all get away with everything constantly.
I walked out after 40 minutes and passed, however ive just completed ethics and legal framework which tied into the exam really well. Suggest any that didnt pass consider doing these two subjects first as they helped a lot.
For every Adviser who has passed, the next time a Compliance or AFSL employed person tells you how they think the law and regulations should be applied, ask them if they have passed the FASEA Exam! If they have not done it, you are more qualified than they are!
i would prefer to burn $6,000 than give it to the evil, self interested profiteering scum at FASEA. I didnt. I instead used AirTasker and got a university grad to sit the exam for me and he got a pass. Cost me $1,000 plus the $600 registration.
I figured that if the FASEA process was unethical and the FASEA board were unethical then i had may as well play by their rules and be treat the exam for what it is. A complete waste of time and money for a piece of paper which is less valuable than if you could use it as printer paper.
You dont learn ethics from sitting an exam and a piece of paper which says you are ethical doesnt make it so.
So you found a financial planning grad, of similar age to you, who was openly willing to commit fraud, on Airtasker? Then you submitted their photo instead of yours as part of the pre registration process? Then you created a false ID that combined your details with the grad's photo, for the grad to use at exam check in? Then you taught them to forge your signature?
Yeah, right. BTW neither the exam nor the results statement involve any paper.
People like you are the reason they are bringing this stuff in, evidently.
I think Anon4 is justing venting and ACER did check IDs
Anon4 must surely be telling porkies, unless he was willing to perpetuate this massive fraud. It would have been easier to just study for the exam than hire air taskers pay them $1000, forge id, blah blah blah, why bother?
A disgraceful excuse of an exam and nothing but a plunder of fees and destruction of money. I did a 3 hour course with TAL, spent most of it tuned out and writing emails, did not a single minute of prep or study, walked in and passed. Great job government, value added everywhere to all our lives! This is really an embarrassment for the government with so many of the supposed uneducated advisers passing with such ease. Perhaps they could admit publicly that the data suggests they were woefully inaccurate in their assessment of us.
For those doing 8 units (to meet the FASEA requirements for existing advisers], if you commenced with Kaplan in Nov 2019, KAPLAN only give you a maximum of 4 years to complete all 8 units. ie If the Fed Govt extends to 2026, this is of little help if you have already commenced a unit.
I failed the FASEA, (14% group) but passed the Ethics bridging course which I found 5 times more onerous than FASEA. Weird !!
I find it interesting that FASEA have pursued with a duplicate assessment system which assesses the same content. With a bridging course, there are 3 assessments (analysis task, lengthy assignment & exam). These 3 assessment modes in totality would reasonably assess your competence on "ethics". Even if someone cheated for the assessments 1 & 2, they couldn't cheat in the exam as you have to show your drivers license or similar photo ID. A single exam, strictly run under conditions a prisoner in a jail cell wouldn't be subject to, assesses your "competence" at a point in time. If you are having a bad day, then too bad. Many suffer from performance anxiety under exam conditions, which in itself blocks the ability for some to recall information.
Fair point re the ethics component. But the FASEA exam is comprised roughly 60% regulatory, 30% ethics, 10% behavioural finance. The ethics bridging course on its own is not enough preparation, no matter how well you did in it. I wonder if Turbo came unstuck by answering regulatory questions from an ethical perspective rather than a legalistic one. Remember folks, financial planning these days is primarily about regulatory compliance. Not ethics, not technical competence, not helping people.
In the Ethics bridging course I completed, there were multiple references to the Corps Act, lengthy list of ASIC RGs (and readings on these required), as well as refer3ences to Privacy, AML/CTF and TPB - all of which fall under "regulatory" and assessable in the FASEA exam. The Ethics bridging course also had a lot on biases, which is part of behavioural finance and which were assessed both in the assignment & exam. I could easily argue there is significant crossover/duplication between the FASEA exam and the Ethics bridging course. I will get nothing out of the FASEA exam that wasn't covered by the bridging course.
Which course was that Bruce?
I demand all people who receive income associated with the financial services profession complete the ethics exam by the end of this year. ALL. Including regulators and politicians and trustees.
If only you knew (sigh). The "regulators, politicians and trustees" are not the problem. It's the AFSL Management and staff at the big licensees that caused much of the problems we saw at the RC. Those few remaining big licensees are still terrible. Most senior management don't even have any FP quals - let alone are they prepared to do an ethics course.
It's my understanding that all Responsible Managers (who are generally also the CEO's) of licensees must also sit the exam. At least that's the case with the CEO/RM of our licensee.
Nope, not yet. At the moment the educational requirements for RMs are well below FASEA standard. There is talk of tightening up RM requirements, but it hasn't happened yet.
Have to disagree. Majority of AFSL support staff/managers are well qualified & some of them are on the FAR as well, so they also have to do the FASEA exam & meet the education standard. Perhaps its at the GM/BU head level or above who are calling the shots that's been the problem.
It's ok to disagree, lets have a look st some of the facts:
GM Advice at IOOF - no business degree, legacy CFP
CEO RI - no business degree, 4 subject diploma
Former Head of AMP Horizons (now at FASEA) - no business degree, no FP quals and never on the FAR, no advice experience
Former Head of CBA Advice now at NAB - no FP quals, never on the FAR, no advice exp
Current MD of AMPFP - not even on the FAR!
Former MD of AMP and Hillross - no business degree, never on the FAR
...it's a long list, there is a start and I could list a lot more. The list of unqualified PDMs, support staff and Compliance people is so long you would need a whole page to list them. Simply have look at some LinkedIn profiles and the FAR for people in the Industry and I think you will be surprised.
A lot of "Execs" and back office people put themselves on the FAR at the last moment in 2018 and I imagine they will disappear just as quickly from there once they cannot get through the exam.
Not yet anyway, but they will likely have too as ASIC consulted on this in late 2018 and are expected to update RG105 this year.
Kaplan Ethics course.
I don't disagree with the examples you have provided (hence my comments this was more likely at GM & above level) & yes there are plenty of unqualified support people. Still there are also plenty who are qualified & good at their job.
With under 2200 registered for Feb exam (as at Jan 29) there are around 20,000 advisers who still need to undertake/retake the exam and only a few dates to do so. How many are going to bail at the end of the year?
If 2500 sit the next 4 exams and ALL pass then you still have 10,000 advicers not covered. I guess FASEA will have an issue. Alternatively they could try doubling the number of computers and venue size. But I wonder who gets the computers after the end of the year.....If it continues to take them 3 months to mark each exam, I suggest there will also be a problem... Waste of resources.
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