FAAA urges advisers to confirm continuing eligibility to practice

Yasmine Raso

Senior Journalist, Financial Newswire

8 December 2025

The Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) has urged financial advisers who have yet to review their Financial Advisers Register (FAR) records to confirm their eligibility to continue to practice in 2026, ahead of the 1 January education/experience pathway deadline.

While the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)-held records indicate that the number of advisers who were yet to confirm they meet the eligibility criteria has halved since June, the FAAA said there is still a large number of those still outstanding.

“We have recently contacted impacted members and licensees about ensuring that ASIC Connect has been updated to reflect qualifications going towards the qualification standard, and to remind qualifying experienced advisers to complete the declaration and have it processed by their licensee,” Phil Anderson, FAAA’s General Manager for policy, advocacy and standards, said.

“The most common issues we are aware of include:

• Advisers who have not flagged which pathway they intend to use.
• Advisers intending to use the experience pathway whose date first provided advice is 1 January 2012 or later/ or who did not pass the Financial Adviser Exam before the cutoff (late October 2022 for most).
• Advisers who flagged they do not intend to use the experience pathway, but whose qualifications do not appear to be sufficient.

“Several members who we recently contacted were unaware they might have an issue until they received our email.”

Anderson also noted that the regulator had released further detailed information on how to update the FAR records on their website, including a link to a temporary dataset to help licensees and advisers “identify incorrect or outdated information”.

“Time is running out fast to resolve this. We urge advisers to double check their ASIC record and contact their licensee urgently if updates are required,” he said.