FASEA confirms all planners will sit same exam
While some questions remain unanswered on the final exam to be imposed on planners through the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority’s (FASEA’s) reforms, the Authority has confirmed that it will require one exam for all advisers regardless of specialisation.
“The exam is targeted at a level that we expect all planners to be able to do, and specialisation exists over and above that,” FASEA chief executive, Stephen Glenfield, told the Financial Planning Association (FPA) Professionals Congress.
As FPA chief executive, Dante De Gori, sought to provide clarity on the recently-released exam draft instrument for members, Glenfield was open about the fact that many other details of the exam were yet to be finalised.
He said the Authority hadn’t settled on a position on the amount of resits available to those failing the exam but confirmed that failing planners could sit a reasonable number of resits.
Glenfield also said that FASEA was working with the exam provider to try and work out an exam structure that would enable planners to only have to resit whichever of the three modules they failed on the exam.
Planners would not be able to sit the exam remotely initially, but Glenfield again promised that FASEA was working out how that could be remedied going forward. Similarly, the Authority was still looking into how the exam would be paid for.
Finally, Glenfield promised that more detail would come on special needs considerations for the exam in the final instrument.
AUTHOR
Hannah Wootton
Recommended for you
Financial Services Minister, Stephen Jones, has assured the cost and time to enter the financial advice profession will soon be halved, as shadow treasurer Angus Taylor pledges to reach 30,000 advisers.
The positive results of the latest financial adviser exam have helped the advice profession reach 15,600 yet again, according to Wealth Data analysis.
Financial advice firms have told Adviser Ratings they are planning to increase their compliance spend by almost a third, including on enhancements to their cyber security which ASIC has identified as an enforcement priority.
The digital advice platform is officially launching into the financial advice sector, offering up its services to practices as a means of engaging with the next generation of clients.
