The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) urged all Australian financial services (AFS) licensees to review the information on their financial advisers. This call comes after the regulator identified multiple errors during a spot check of the Financial Advisers Register.
ASIC Calls On Financial Services To Update Records About Their Advisers
In its media release, ASIC said some issues related to qualifications and training courses where an ‘approved’ box was wrongly ticked. Errors included qualifications not lining up with the course descriptions, some marked as qualifications were professional designations, and others were bridging courses and not qualifications per se.
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This regulator also detected instances where the financial adviser’s contact information was outdated or incorrect. It prompted AFS licensees to conduct immediate reviews and pay special attention to approved qualifications, ability to offer tax or financial advice, and contact information. ASIC noted:
It is a serious offence to knowingly provide false or misleading information to ASIC or to fail to take reasonable steps to ensure that the information provided to ASIC is true and correct. It is also an offence to fail to update the Financial Advisers Register within 30 business days of a financial adviser’s details changing.
From 1 August 2024 to 1 January 2026, this financial watchdog will run a compliance scheme to vet the qualifications information on the register. If ASIC identifies discrepancies, it will take action and added:
… all financial advisers must comply with the qualification standard, either by completing an approved qualification, by completing qualifications the Minister has determined to be equivalent to an approved qualification for existing advisers, or by accessing the experienced provider pathway.
