Time running out in absence of ‘experienced pathway’

The clock is ticking and time is almost up for financial advisers and stockbrokers needing to make decisions around the ‘experienced pathway’.

The time-frames necessary for advisers to complete six or eight units of a degree are compressing fast.

What is more, the descriptors around degrees approved under the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) regime are so tight that even minor adjustments on the part of tertiary institutions is impacting graduates when they seek recognition of their qualification.

Financial Newswire has been told of at least two instances where the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has told graduates their degrees are non-compliant because of minor changes to degree descriptors by their university.

With the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, still yet to make an announcement around the ‘experienced pathway’ concern is being expressed that time has almost run out for advisers or stockbrokers who will therefore have to complete six or eight units of a complying degree.

Stockbrokers and Investments Advisers Association (SIAA) chief executive, Judith Fox said she believed that unless the Government made the pathway clear in coming weeks, then many advisers and stockbrokers who had put their decision-making on hold were in danger of running out of time.

“It takes time to complete six or eight units of a degree and we are about to enter April, 2023 in circumstances where the deadline is in the latter half of 2025,” Fox said.

She said that if those affected judged that they could not complete the necessary units in the remaining time, then there was the danger of another spate of adviser exits.

What is more, Fox pointed to the fact that while the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) might be pointing to adviser exits having levelled off over the past three months, this could not disguise the fact the pipeline of new entrants had collapsed.

She said there was an urgent need for greater clarity not only around the ‘experienced pathway’ but around recognised degrees if a further exodus was to be avoided and the pipeline of graduate new entrants restored.

The ‘experience pathway’ will be discussed by a panel at Financial Newswire’s forthcoming Platforms, Wraps and Adviser Technology Conference from 17-19 May in the Hunter Valley. https://financialnewswire.com.au/platforms-wraps-and-advice-technology-2023/