Adviser Exam Poll Results

3
Are you confident you could achieve at least a 65% pass mark for FASEA's proposed Financial Adviser Examination?
  • Not sure - I need more details (47%)
  • No (27%)
  • Yes (26%)

The jury is still out on whether advisers think they’ll be able to achieve at least a 65% pass mark in FASEA’s proposed Financial Adviser Exam.

As we go to print, the prevailing view is that more information is needed before many advisers can determine whether they think they’ll be ok to pass the proposed exam.

It’s rare that a ‘Not sure’ option is the most popular response, as it is for this poll question, which bears out the fact that FASEA needs to release more information about the exam before many advisers can make up their mind about it.  At this stage, about half of those voting (49%) think they need more details, 28% don’t think they can achieve the minimum pass mark and only 23% think they can.

A couple of clarifications:

  1. The proposed FASEA Financial Adviser Exam is not product-specific. The Authority is proposing an exam that it will require every authorised representative to sit and pass, irrespective of whether they consider themselves specialist risk advisers, holistic planners, derivatives experts or any other planner/adviser within the authorised representative spectrum. This doesn’t mean there’s not a valid debate that can be explored about whether there should be separate exams for advisers who specialise in specific areas, but FASEA’s intention is to test all advisers in the generic areas of:
    1. Corporations Act (emphasis on Chapter 7 – Financial services and markets)
    2. The FASEA Code of Ethics
    3. Financial Advice Construction – suitability of advice aligned to different consumer groups
    4. Behavioural Finance: Client and consumer behaviour, engagement and decision making
    5. Applied ethical and professional reasoning and communication
  2. We indicated last week that you’ll also need to pass the exam on your first attempt, unless you can prove exceptional circumstances, such as illness. This was observation was based on some ambiguous wording in FASEA’s exam consultation paper. The Authority has since confirmed that individuals can sit the exam up to three times without needing to prove exceptional circumstances.

Would one or both of these clarifications sway your thinking on your ability to pass FASEA’s proposed financial adviser exam? While we await more details from the Authority, such as some test exam questions, our poll remains open for another week if you want to add your voice to this debate…



3 COMMENTS

  1. If I was any good at Tertiary Studies, which means I can read, memorise, retain and regurgitate, I would have been a Dr, Lawyer, Engineer or some other recognised profession that society can’t live without. If you have have told me that I need a University Degree to sell Life Insurance, I wouldn’t have chosen that path. I’d also suggest nor would any intellegent person graduating with a decent OP (under 10), whihc is the minimum OP entry score for the types of Degrees to which FASEA is referring . Good luck with recruiting the people to provide personal risk advice. ASIC and FASEA, your are wrong!

  2. It’s just unfathomable what advisers are being subjected to in this industry!!

    First LIF where our income is capped, then reduced next year – and reduced again the year after. Then, we’re expected to become fortune tellers and predict whether a client’s insurance is going to ‘stick’ for 2 years or else we’re penalised financially (why this is our fault, I have absolutely no idea!!!).

    And now, to add yet another obstacle to what we’re trying to do for our clients each day, many of us – including myself now have to go back to school for the next 4-5 years to study as many as 8 courses, most of which aren’t relevant to what many of us do – at enormous cost ($10,000 – 15,000) and huge impost on our business and family lives.

    Mark my words, there will be advisers that take their own lives as a consequence of these proposals and blood will be spoilt. I have no doubt about that.

    And why? Because we have a regulator and gullible politicians who have no official qualifications in the portfolios they occupy, who consistently focus on the small negatives and the rubbish they’re fed by the media who want nothing more each day than another scalp.

    What other industry, anywhere in the world, is subjected to this ridiculous treatment?

    While travelling to a client appt last night, a epiphany dawned on me as I looked through the windscreen at the car ahead me…

    Every car and every truck on the road has a windscreen. Just about every one of those windscreens has a chip, scratch or tarnish on it. But despite the imperfections, those windscreens serve a major role for each and every driver on the road each day / night. Like what 99% of financial advisers out there do for their clients each day, it protects the driver and the occupants in the car from the unknown and the elements.

    Unfortunately, our media, Government and ASIC has done nothing but focus on the chips, scratches and imperfections of our industry the last 3-5 years and they’ve done it relentlessly without focusing on the bigger picture of what 99% of advisers out there are do each day.

    Instead of simply rectifying the tarnish, chip or scratch on the windscreen (our industry) with a small patch, our government, ASIC and FASEA now have decided to take the approach of totally dismantling the car altogether and rebuilding it. Panel beaters don’t replace a whole car when the bumper bar’s been dinged; why is the government, ASIC and FASEA trying to rebuild this industry at such enormous cost and impost to so many advisers here?

    If these education and exam requirements go through as they currently stand, this industry will be obliterated for many years and the perpetrators of them, will have blood on their hands. Mark my words.

  3. Great call Squeaky_1 – especially your comment about advisers that haven’t had a complaint in 20-30 years.

    I said it on another post earlier today – ASIC, FASEA, FPA etc etc AND THE MEDIA have done nothing but focus on the chips and scratches of our industry’s windscreen the last 3-5 years instead of looking at the bigger picture past those minor blemishes which is the great work our clients benefit from.

    Bar one claim that was declined as a result of deliberate non-disclosure and my one and only TPD (Any Occ) claim that was declined for mental health when the client had already retired – EVERY SINGLE CLAIM I’ve had registered has been paid – half a dozen of them are ongoing to this day.

    With this being the case, surely I already know what I’m doing as a risk only adviser!

Comments are closed.