Over 90% of candidates pass FASEA exam

Approximately 2 per cent of practicing advisers, more than 570 participants, sat the exam in June. Advisers are now required to pass the test set by the ethics authority before 2021.

Australian Council for Education Research (ACER) is the provider for the exam and it graded the papers using its marking approach. The tests were marked to credit standard, with the pass varying with each exam that was held across nine centres in June.

A number of proud advisers posted their pass outcomes across LinkedIn yesterday. David Graham, senior financial planner at Story Wealth Management, was one of them.

Reflecting on the exam, he has said the guidance and material was broad, making it difficult to prepare for.

“As the reading material, they’re basically giving you volumes four and five of the Corporations Act to read now. That runs to 2,000 pages, and a lot of it is not specific to financial planning, so it’s irrelevant,” Mr Graham said.

“In that regard, it was a little bit courageous, doing the exam at the first sitting without any real knowledge about what it was going to be about."

FASEA chief executive Stephen Glenfield said FASEA was pleased with the implementation and unsuccessful candidates were able to resit the exam.

“FASEA is pleased with the implementation of the first exam and congratulates successful candidates on completing an important component of their education requirements under the Corporations Act,” Mr Glenfield said.

“Unsuccessful candidates are able to resit the exam and these advisers will receive guidance on which knowledge areas they need to improve to enhance their ability at a future sitting.”

Registrations are now open for the September exam sittings across 15 locations, as well as the December exam hosted in 18 centres, with more than 1,000 enrolled already.

Mr Graham noted the final exam is being rolled out in December 2020, with the result coming out after the 2021 deadline. The time frame to do the exam, originally planned to be two years, has effectively been withered down to 18 months, he said.

“The last session in December next year is really kind of irrelevant now, it shrinks the window down to a little more than a year,” he said.

“And given that we got the results yesterday, months after the exam, you only really get the chance to do it once every six months.

“I reckon that at best, people have three chances to sit it, over that effectively 18-month period. It is probably not what was originally intended or expected.”

Eliot Hastie

Eliot Hastie is a journalist at Momentum Media, writing primarily for its wealth and financial services platforms. 

Eliot joined the team in 2018 having previously written on Real Estate Business with Momentum Media as well.

Eliot graduated from the University of Westminster, UK with a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism).

You can email him on: [email protected]