ASIC releases June exam pass mark

The sitting held in June 2024 was the second sitting of the year after the February sitting was delayed because of structural changes to the format of the exam.

June saw 235 people sat the exam, including 67 per cent who were sitting the exam for the first time. Some 70 per cent, representing 165 candidates, passed the exam.

The 70 per cent pass mark was unchanged from the sitting in March but there were fewer candidates as 298 sat in the earlier sitting.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said unsuccessful candidates will receive general feedback from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) on the areas where they underperformed.

To date, more than 21,000 candidates have sat the exam over 25 sittings and 92 per cent have passed.

Changes to the exam format earlier this year saw removal of short-answer questions from the exam, leaving only multiple-choice questions. The requirement that only provisional relevant providers and existing advisers could sit the exam was also removed.

The changes followed a brief Treasury consultation on draft legislation at the end of 2023 which ASIC then confirmed it would be implementing in January.

It was hoped that multiple-choice questions would be more efficient by enabling computer marking to replace manual marking which would reduce the cost of administering the exam and improve response times for candidates to receive their results.

Last week, a financial adviser who had falsified his exam result saw a permanent ban from ASIC reduced by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to seven years.

Todd Karamian was permanently banned in March 2023 for falsifying the result of his financial adviser exam from a fail to a pass. He sat the exam in November 2021, having already rescheduled it three times. This was the final sitting he could take in order to maintain his status as a relevant provider on 1 January 2022.

When he received his result, he detailed how he “sat in shock” and realised there were no further sittings available to retake the exam. He then manually changed it and continued to provide financial advice at licensee Bluepoint, where he had worked since 2003, to 11 clients when he was not a relevant provider.

In the AAT orders, Justice Kyrou said the decision to vary the ban had been taken based on their expert evidence about Karamian’s mental health, a prior good record over many years, and extensive favourable character evidence. He also outlined that the applicant was remorseful, took responsibility for the action, and there was a low risk of him doing the same action again.