Dump ‘redundant’ adviser exam says AIOFP

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

23 September 2022

The Financial Advisers Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) exam is redundant and should be abandoned, according to the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP).

In a submission to filed with Treasury in response to its consultation around adviser education standards, the AIOFP said it did not regard the call to abandon the exam to be controversial because “The FASEA exam is redundant for new entrants as they are all completing formal education at AQF 7 level [and] for this reason a national exam of practitioners is no longer justified”.

“The burden of an Exam to test competency and knowledge for no additional accreditation or recognition is not present in any other industry or profession. When compared to other common law countries, Australia has acted alone in this regard,” the submission said.

It said there was no public benefit in maintaining “such a contentious exam”.

“Given the loss of advisers and the current requirements for professional technical and ethical education, the imperative to continue with such a national exam no longer exists. Consumers are now better served by a cohort of professional advisers who actively subscribe to minimum competency standards and ethical behaviours.:

The AIOFP submission also states that the organisation “does not support the inclusion of Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) complaints or Professional body disciplinary action which may be biased due to opinion, internal conflict, vendettas and politics and may not be based on the technicality of advice or bad advice”.

“We strongly support recognition disciplinary action recorded against an adviser on the financial adviser register (FAR) as the measure of ‘clean record’,” it said.

The submission said this could be supplemented by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission providing details of banning orders and enforceable undertakings.