ASIC’s FAR data accuracy questioned
Questions have been raised about the validity of statements by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) that at least 3,549 financial advisers may be unable to provide advice after 31 December, this year.
ASIC made the claim based on current information on the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) and urged licensees to urgently review and update that information.
However, the Stockbrokers and Investment Advisers Association (SIAA) has pointed to ASIC actions which involved the removal and relocation of some information for the ASIC Connect portal.
In a submission responding to ASIC’s Rep 813 dealing with regulatory simplification, the SIAA pointed to what had given rise to the problem.
“Recently, ASIC has urged licensees to urgently review the accuracy of the information on the FAR regarding their financial advisers intending to provide personal advice to retail clients from 1 January 2026 due to concerns that, based on current information on the FAR, at least 3,459 financial advisers may be unable to provide advice after 31 December 2025 as their details do not support compliance with either the experienced adviser pathway or the approved qualification pathway,” it said.
“As part of the transition, ASIC removed information about financial advisers accessing the experienced provider pathway and their education/qualifications from the FAR and placed it into a temporary dataset accessible via a link on the ASIC website. We assume this was done to cleanse the data that was on the FAR to ensure that going forward it was accurate and reflected the updated requirements.
“At the moment, this is a one-off, point-in-time dataset, and current as at 16 September 2025. If a financial adviser has been appointed and/or had their details updated on the FAR after ASIC prepared the dataset, these details may not appear in the spreadsheet.
“In any event, this process has created confusion with our members voicing frustrations to us as to why they are unable to access their advisers’ accurate information on the FAR and having to be reminded that these details (as of 16 September 2025) can be found in the temporary dataset,” the SIAA said
“This highlights:
- The administrative burden placed on licensees resulting from constant changes to ASIC Connect over the past few years. Licensees have had to review and continually update adviser records each time ASIC changes how information needs to be recorded.
- The limitations of the ASIC register. The FAR now contains much more information than before and licensees are required to update changes to these details within 30 days. The modernisation work on ASIC Connect should be prioritised due to the large amounts of information that licensees are required to provide and the costs involved in doing so.
When are you going to investigate the number of wholesale only advisers in the industry today & therefore not recorded on the FAR, of which I am one, which may shed some light on what has happened to some of the 15,000 or so advisers who have left the industry over the past few years.
ASIC has only ever mentioned 3,549 FAR registrants. Not 3,549 advisers. Many of those 3,549 are not practising advisers.
ASIC has also said about half of those registrants could qualify via the experience pathway if they chose, but hadn’t yet made an election to do so. (As at 16 Sep.)
That leaves about 1,750 registrants who are either
– still completing their studies and will remain on FAR come 1 Jan
– not practising advisers and will drop off FAR on 1 Jan
– advisers who don’t qualify for the experience pathway and have decided not to complete the necessary studies, and will drop off FAR on 1 Jan.
Of this last group it’s hard to imagine many advisers in this situation who would make that decision. There may be some who sold practices and have aligned their transition out with 1 Jan 2026. But not many.
My bet is about 800 registrants drop off on 1 Jan, and very few of them will have been practising advisers.