Individuals who provide personal advice to retail clients about financial products have until 30 May 2015 to update their details on ASIC’s Financial Adviser Register in order to avoid late fees. This applies to employees, directors and authorised representatives of AFS licensees – unless they only advise on basic deposit products, general insurance and consumer credit products, in which case they don’t need to register at all.
The Fold Legal (The Fold)’s Senior Consultant, Sonia Cruz, says that ASIC’s statistics show that since the launch of the Financial Adviser Register on 31 March 2015, over 22,000 advisers have been added. “Believe it or not, around 2,800 people search the Register every week day,” she says.
Ms Cruz says between 25-30 May 2015 the following additional information must be uploaded to the Financial Adviser Register for each current financial adviser:
• The training and courses that the adviser has completed, including the name of the course, the year it was attained and the provider or educational institution.
• Membership of a professional body which is relevant to financial services, e.g. AFA, FPA, etc.
• Employment history for the last 5 years including AFSL numbers of previous employers and employment start and end dates.
• The date the adviser first commenced providing financial services.
“As it’s an offence to enter incorrect information, the person entering the additional information must verify it before updating the Financial Adviser Register,” Ms Cruz says.
She recommends:
• Requesting copies of certificates, qualifications and statements of attainment; and
• Conducting checks with previous employers, relevant training providers/education institutions and professional associations (where necessary).
“If advisers are authorised representatives, both the Authorised Representative Register and the Financial Adviser Register need to be updated when they are appointed and when changes occur,” she says.
The Financial Adviser Register can be viewed via both ASIC’s MoneySmart portal and the Professional Registers section of its website. For more information about how to access the Register, useful FAQs and screen shots of the ASIC Connect webpages can be found on the ASIC website.
