Reading an entry on the financial advisers register

Finding the entry

The register is searched on Moneysmart, by name, number or ABN, or by suburb or postcode. A common name can return many people. Moneysmart’s answer is to get the adviser’s representative number or Australian Business Number from them, and search by that.

The people on it are what the law calls relevant providers: individuals authorised to give personal advice to retail clients about relevant financial products. Each one is put on the register, and kept up to date, by the AFS licensee that authorises them.

An entry, field by field

Below is a blank specimen with the parts of an entry labelled. It holds no real person’s details. The field names follow what ASIC says licensees must, or may, lodge.

Specimen entry · labels only

Name and role: The adviser’s name and one of three role types: relevant provider (financial adviser), provisional relevant provider, or time-share adviser.
Registration status: Licensees must register their relevant providers with ASIC before those providers give personal advice to retail clients, and the register shows the status.
Licensee: The AFS licensee that authorises the adviser, with the date they were appointed to that licence. The register shows the licensee’s current name; a licence number stays the same through a change of name.
Numbers: A representative number and an ABN, where the licensee has supplied them. The adviser’s email address, and phone number if given, are lodged but not shown publicly.
Authorisations: The types of product the adviser may advise on, such as securities, superannuation or life risk insurance. Each adviser must be authorised for at least one, and never for more than their licensee holds. Moneysmart notes these are product types, not the names of particular products.
Recent advising history: The adviser’s time as a relevant provider with other licensees over the last five years: each previous licence number, with start and end dates.
Qualifications: Up to 20 qualifications and courses, each with its level, name, institution and year, and whether it counts towards the qualifications standard in the Corporations Act.
Tax (financial) advice: Whether the adviser may provide tax (financial) advice services, and in what capacity.
CPD: A dated line appears if the adviser was notified as failing to meet the yearly continuing professional development requirements.
Memberships: Up to five professional bodies.
Disciplinary action: Any of the records listed in the next section.

What the role types mean

A provisional relevant provider, which the industry calls a provisional financial adviser, is someone in the third or fourth quarter of their professional year. ASIC says they will have an approved degree, have passed the financial adviser exam, have finished the first two quarters of the year, and be authorised by a licensee to give personal advice. Provisional relevant providers cannot be registered. A time-share adviser gives advice only about time-share schemes.

“Relevant financial products” means every financial product except basic banking products, general insurance, consumer credit insurance, or a mix of only those.

The disciplinary records it must show

Moneysmart lists what the register is required to show, where it applies:

a ban on providing financial services;
a disqualification from managing corporations;
an enforceable undertaking accepted by ASIC or the Financial Services and Credit Panel;
a registration suspension or prohibition order, an infringement order, or in certain circumstances a direction such as to undertake training, from the Financial Services and Credit Panel;
a ban or disqualification from engaging in credit activities;
a disqualification from being an approved SMSF auditor.

Moneysmart says these actions are generally taken because the adviser has broken the law. Advisers banned, disqualified or bound by an enforceable undertaking before 31 March 2015 who have not returned to advice are not on this register at all; they sit on ASIC’s banned or disqualified register or its enforceable undertakings register, both reached from ASIC’s list of registers.

The standards behind the qualification fields

Professional standards apply to relevant providers who give personal advice on relevant financial products to retail clients, and to people training to become one. They require:

The professional standards, as ASIC summarises them
Standard	What it asks
Qualifications	Meeting the qualifications standard; the Minister sets education standards and approves qualifications.
Exam	Passing the financial adviser exam, which ASIC administers.
Professional year	Completing a professional year, for people training to become a relevant provider.
CPD	40 hours a year, of which at least five must be in tax (financial) advice for those who provide tax (financial) advice services.
Code of Ethics	Complying with the Financial Planners and Advisers Code of Ethics 2019.

The standards do not apply to people who give only general advice, or only personal advice on products such as general insurance and basic banking, or personal advice only to wholesale clients. The difference between general and personal advice is drawn on sheet 02.

What the register is, and what it is not

The information comes from the licensees and authorised representatives themselves, and ASIC does not check or review it before it goes on. Keeping it true and correct is the licensee’s legal obligation, and ASIC may act if information is shown to be misleading or incorrect. When an adviser’s details change, the licensee has 30 business days to update the entry, so a recent change may not show yet.

If an entry looks wrong, Moneysmart’s order is: raise it with the licensee that lodged it first, then, if the concern remains, lodge a report of misconduct with ASIC. The same two routes apply if an adviser recommends a product outside the product types listed for them.

Checking the licensee as well

An adviser operating properly holds an AFS licence or works for, or is authorised to represent, a business that does. Moneysmart points to ASIC’s professional registers search to check the licensee’s name. The licensee’s name and number also appear in a Statement of Advice, as sheet 04 shows.