The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) has removed the option of sitting its mandatory adviser exam for November in physical locations in Melbourne due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions in place in Victoria.
The authority stated advisers who had registered for a Melbourne physical location exam would be given the choice of sitting the exam online or deferring it to a later exam period in 2021.
Advisers affected by the decision will be contacted by exam administrator ACER, which will explain the options for sitting the exam, and FASEA urged advisers to check their details were correct in the registration system to ensure contact occurred.
The decision to offer an online option only was due to the continued closure of Melbourne metropolitan exam venues and this exam is the third to be affected by the pandemic restrictions after the August and October exams were also only offered online by FASEA.
Regional exam centres in Victoria will be unaffected by the decision and the Geelong exam location will remain open to advisers from regional Victoria.
Advisers choosing to defer the exam to 2021 will have limited opportunities to sit it, with FASEA announcing in September that only six exam periods will be offered next year, which will be the last year in which advisers must pass the exam following an extension being granted by the federal government.
