‘You could pass and still be a poor financial planner’: FASEA exam anger ‘misplaced’

Appearing on a recent episode of the ifa Show, Eureka Whittaker Macnaught co-founder Greg Cook – who has been in the industry for 30 years – believes that scrutiny and anger towards the FASEA exam are “misplaced”.

“I think you could pass the FASEA exam and still be a very poor financial planner, because there’s obviously a lot of stuff it doesn’t cover,” Mr Cook said.

“I don’t think people that were really arcing up about it and what have you, I think that was all of a bit misplaced.”

Late last year, ASIC confirmed there would be four exam sittings in 2022, with the first to be held from 17 February until 21 February.

In December, it was revealed that only 52 per cent of all candidates had passed the exam.

Just 63 per cent of candidates sitting the exam for the first time passed the November exam, compared with an average of 75 per cent across all exams.

To date, 3,197 unsuccessful candidates have resat the exam with 66 per cent passing at a resit.

“I mean, you should be able to study up and get the exam done,” Mr Cook continued.

“And I mean, if you’re unlucky enough to fail it, and resit it, and pass it a second or third time, well, you should be able to get on and do that as well.

“So there’s a heap of regulatory and compliance hurdles in being an adviser, and that’s just another one of them that we’ve had to deal with over the last year or two.”

ASIC is poised to take over administration of the financial adviser exam from the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) from 1 January 2022 following the commencement of the Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal commission Response – Better Advice) Act 2021.

Listen to the full podcast with Mr Cook here.

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.