Financial planners at superannuation funds have seen the highest pass rate of the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) exam passes up to May, which stood close to 80%, according to Wealth Data.
This was compared to accountants with a limited advice peer group that struggled the most, with only around of 22% FASEA exam passes.
The analysis was based on 11,005 known results, defined as FASEA passes published to the public, while at the same time the FASEA said that over 14,850 had passed.
“The first number you may note is that the number of passes after being grossed up is only 13,538, well short of the FASEA amount of 14,850,” Wealth data director, Colin Williams, said.
He further explained the variance was down to a known 972 advisers who passed the exam but were not listed as ‘current’ advisers as per the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Financial Advisers Register (FAR).
“If we gross this amount up it becomes 1,311 and when added back in, it gets much closer to the 14,850 as stated by FASEA,” Williams added.
“FASEA claim that 74% of advisers have now passed the exam, we believe it is 71% of current practicing advisers that have passed the exam.”
Source: Wealth Data
According to Wealth Data, year-to-date movement was again little changed this week with Oreana dropping one adviser role but posted a growth of 19. Following this, Centrepoint and Count posted a growth of 16 new roles each.
At the same time, losses year-to-date were still dominated by the larger groups with IOOF down (377) roles, followed by AMP Group at (-251) and NTAA down (-161).
Williams said that the financial year to date was looking positive with +96 roles.
“We are still seeing a small amount of resignations posted into June which elevates the positive for July,” he said.
This week’s analysis of the ASIC’s FAR showed a further decrease of (-16) adviser roles moving from 19,368 to 19,352 while the number of actual advisers dropped by 18 from to 19,079.
