The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) has issued two additional legislative instruments for consultation, with one covering the relevant providers degrees, qualifications and courses standard.
Released yesterday evening, the legislative instrument follows FASEA’s consultation process for this standard between March and June, for which it received around 150 formal submissions.
In the legislative instrument, FASEA has proposed the minimum requirements for a new entrant will be an approved Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) level 8 graduate diploma of eight subjects.
Existing advisers with a FASEA-approved bachelor or master’s degree will need to complete one subject, which is FASEA’s code of ethics and code monitoring bodies bridging course.
The maximum requirement for a new entrant will be an approved AQF7 bachelor degree of 24 subjects, while for an existing adviser it will be a graduate diploma of eight subjects.
The standards body has proposed a revised set of education pathways for new entrants and existing advisers, including a further defined recognition of prior learning (RPL) framework for existing advisers.
The number of subjects required and RPL will differ by pathway for each individual.
The RPL cannot be awarded for FASEA’s ethics and professionalism, including the FASEA code of ethics and code monitoring bodies bridging course, as the code is new.
RPL will also be available for the new entrant pathway as per the policies of approved education providers for both the bachelor degree and graduate diploma programs.
Future legislative instruments will add new degrees, equivalent qualifications, bridging courses and approved coursework to attain a designation.
FASEA will continue to assess education for approval as it receives applications.
The second legislative instrument covers the code of ethics, with FASEA proposing it should address the values of trust, competence, honesty, fairness and diligence.
“All advisers must act at all times, in all cases in a manner that is demonstrably consistent with the 12 standards, which will be monitored by ASIC’s approved code monitoring bodies,” FASEA said.
This legislative instrument follows a consultation paper on the code of ethics in March, which invited submissions by June. A total of 37 submissions were received for this standard.
FASEA is seeking submissions until 14 December for both standards.
