ASIC’s FAR data accuracy questioned

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

21 October 2025

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.