The requirement for financial advisers to be registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) by the start of next year has been postponed by six months to allow the corporate regulator to make improvements to the process.
Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones said the requirement for advisers to be registered by their licensees, which is the first part of a two-stage registration process, would be postponed to 1 July 2023, adding six months to the original start date of 1 January.
Under stage one, Australian financial services licensees will be required to register advisers with ASIC, which will use the Financial Advisers Register (FAR), while stage two will take place once the FAR has transitioned to the ATO as part of the Australian Business Registry Service and advisers will be required to register themselves individually and renew their registration annually.
“ASIC has been engaging closely with industry about how best to implement stage one, with a view to ensuring the obligation on licensees to register financial advisers operates as efficiently as possible,” Jones said.
“Through this engagement, ASIC has identified ways to improve the operation of the stage one registration process with benefits for licensees.
“Delaying the requirement for financial advisers to be registered until 1 July 2023 will allow these improvements to be implemented. The registration obligation in stage one will remain with licensees.”
The requirement for advisers to be centrally registered was a recommendation of the financial services royal commission and became part of the Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal Commission Response – Better Advice) Act 2021, which also created a new disciplinary system for financial advisers and led to the winding up of the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority.
