The Financial Advice Association Australia said ahead of the 1 January 2026 education/ experience pathway deadline for advisers, the number of advisers for whom the ASIC records indicate are yet to meet the criteria for continuing to practice, has halved since June.
However, there are still a large number who remain outstanding.
Phil Anderson, FAAA’s general manager policy, advocacy and standards, said the FAAA has been working closely with ASIC over the last few months as the deadline approaches.
“We have recently contacted impacted members and licensees about ensuring that ASIC Connect has been updated to reflect qualifications going towards the qualification standard, and to remind qualifying experienced advisers to complete the declaration and have it processed by their licensee,” he said.
Anderson said the most common issues of which the FAAA is aware of include:
Advisers who have not flagged which pathway they intend to use.
- Advisers intending to use the experience pathway whose date first provided advice is later than January 2011 and/ or who did not pass the Financial Adviser Exam before the cutoff (late October 2022 for most).
- Advisers who flagged they do not intend to use the experience pathway, but whose qualifications do not appear to be sufficient.
“Several members who we recently contacted were unaware they might have an issue until they received our email,” Anderson said.
“ASIC has created a webpage with detailed information on how to update the register, which also includes a link to the temporary dataset.Time is running out fast to resolve this. We urge advisers to double check their ASIC record and contact their licensee urgently if updates are required.”
Last week ASIC released figures that indicated that more than 2000 relevant providers have yet to meet the qualifications standard according to the information currently recorded on the Financial Advisers Register.
The regulator stated that for relevant providers who are also existing providers and who do not meet the qualifications standard by 1 January 2026, their AFS licensee should consider ceasing their authorisation on or before 31 December 2025 to avoid consequences to the existing provider status.
In accordance with the legislation, if the relevant providers remain authorised and their authorisation ceases by operation of law on 1 January 2026, they will be required to compete a professional year and obtain an approved degree or equivalent qualification set out in Schedule 1 of the Corporations (Relevant Providers Degrees, Qualifications and Courses Standard) Determination 2021 before they can provide personal advice to retail clients again.
They will be unable to meet the qualifications standard by accessing the existing provider pathways as set out in Part 3 of the determination.
AFS licensees are responsible for ensuring relevant provider records are accurate and up to date on the register.
A review of the information on the FAR shows as of 20 November 2025, of the 15,469 relevant providers, AFS licensees have notified ASIC that 7,959 hold an approved degree or qualification.
A further 4,212 are relying on the experienced provider pathway, and 972 are recorded as holding both an approved degree or qualification and relying on the experienced provider pathway.
