Why are advisers not reporting passing the FASEA exam?
This week’s analysis has further confirmed drops in adviser numbers, with another loss of 37 advisers, and with the total number of actual advisers brought to below 20,500.
At the same time, HFS Consulting, which examines weekly adviser movements from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC’s) Financial Adviser Register (FAR), has found that a large number of those advisers who had passed the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) exam failed to report it back to ASIC.
HFS’ director Colin Williams said that, as a result, according to the data from the FAR there were only 120 advisers who have reported passing the FASEA exam while a total of 3,361 advisers held one or more FASEA approved qualification.
This stood in stark contrast with the FASEA’s announcement from February which stated that more than 11,000 advisers had passed the exam.
“Given the media post Royal Commission and currently the coverage of Melissa Caddick as to whether she should be called an ex financial adviser, one would have thought that it was vital for all advisers and licensees ensure that adviser qualifications are current on the ASIC FAR,” Williams said.
“The ASIC Money Smart Website is probably the most popular used by the public to check out a prospective adviser and the details at Money Smart for each adviser is sourced from the ASIC FAR register.”
Percentage of advisers who have at least one FASEA approved qualification (licensees with 20 or more advisers)
Source: HFS Consulting
In total, there were 50 adviser roles which were appointed this week, which included 48 switches and two new provisional advisers, while 88 adviser roles ceased, giving the net total of -38 roles.
This means that 27 licensees made net adviser role gains while 45 licensees saw net adviser losses for the week.
According to HFS, RV Wealth, controlled by Fitzpatricks Private Wealth, had the largest loss with (-8), and none of these advisers being currently shown as appointed elsewhere, and was followed by Godfrey Pembroke and GWM Financial Planning of which each lost six advisers each.
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