This has been a long time coming as minimum standards have been woefully inadequate. It may surprise you to know that historically, people have been able to become licencsed advisers in as little as 2 weeks. 

The new minimum standards are very comprehensive. To be a licenced adviser going forward you will be required to do 5+ years of full-time study (including a bachelor’s degree), one year of formal training/experience, plus you will need to pass a new national exam set by FASEA. We think these standards are far more representative of the training and experience required in order to give good, well-informed financial advice.

 

Implementing changes like these are always difficult and will never be executed flawlessly, but continuing with the old standards is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately however, there has been a lot of lobbying by those that want to keep the old minimum standards. As a result, whilst new advisers will be required to meet the new minimum standards from 1 January 2019, it looks as though the new standards will not apply to existing advisers until 2026.

  

Whilst we think it’s reasonable that there is a grace period for existing advisers, it will mean that for the next 6 years you might be dealing with an adviser that is very qualified or barely qualified that has no intention of practicing beyond 2026. The question I would be asking my adviser – do you meet the new standards yet?

We are very pleased to advise that Graham Financials’ two partners Ben and Martin both met (in fact exceeded) all of the new minimum standards early in their careers. They have also both recently completed the newly required ethics bridging course and passed the new national exam set by FASEA.