Structure of this ‘Prep’ Course

The purpose of the examination is to assess your competencies as a new entrant undertaking your Professional Year or as an existing Financial Adviser (if still eligible to sit the exam). The examination has been designed to reflect the competencies required to provide quality personal financial advice to retail clients.

In the following sections, we will explore the:

• Recommended Reading lists for the Exam Curriculum.
• “Hot List” of readings we have curated and assembled based on feedback received from individuals who have sat the official Financial Adviser Exam.
• Learner Guide we have created and structured the plethora of information in an easy to read structure, and provides a simple ‘one point of access’ source of information.
• Practice Exam and case studies to help “bring it all together” and get you ‘match ready’ to sit the official Financial Adviser Exam.

ASIC Financial Adviser Exam Resources: You can find up-to-date resources regarding the exam issued by ASIC at the link HERE. These resources relate to exam procedures and candidate information and are not designed as detailed “exam preparation” course materials.

How do I get started?

Please CAREFULLY READ the instructions below. 

Familiarise yourself with the “FILES” tab and “MODULES” tab as per the instructions below.    To open any TAB in a new browser window, simply hold ‘Ctrl’ & click the LEFT MOUSE BUTTON on the tab.  This will make it much easier to navigate the system.  

Navigating through the documents

Participants can choose to navigate through the documents in a couple of ways.

1.  Use the “Modules” tab in the LEFT-hand vertical navigation bar on your online Portal screen.  

2.  Use “Previous” and “Mark Complete” buttons at the bottom of the online screen to navigate through the pages/modules.  These buttons allow you, the Participant, to move sequentially through the learning materials at your own pace.

Exam Curriculum

The exam allows candidates to demonstrate professional reasoning and apply the knowledge acquired to financial advice scenarios at AQF 7 level of reasoning.  The examination covers three domains of knowledge and skills as follows:

1. (FARL) Financial Advice Regulatory and Legal Obligations (including Corporations Act – Chapter 7, Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Tax Agents Services Act (TASA)) – the learning outcomes are to:

• Apply Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act to case studies/scenarios and identify responsible provider obligations and breaches of those obligations.
• Apply Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act to key advice documentation.
• Determine the consequences of breaches of the disclosure obligations under Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act for themselves, for clients, and for industry.
• Evaluate case studies and identify breaches of the disclosure obligations under Chapter 7.
• Demonstrate knowledge and identify breaches of Chapter 7 and subsequent notification obligations.
• Demonstrate knowledge of legal requirements for both the individual and the licensee.
• Apply legal requirements of AML/CTF legislation to scenarios/case studies.
• Evaluate scenarios in terms of the legal requirements and how to apply the Privacy Act.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the civil penalty provisions for the provision of tax (financial) advice services in subdivision 50-AA of the TASA.

2. (AETH) Applied ethical and professional reasoning and communication – the learning outcomes are to:

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the Code of Ethics and its importance to the industry.
• Apply the Code of Ethics to dilemmas/scenarios, identify compliance and non-compliance and consequences to the practitioner, the client and industry.
• Identify scenarios that meet legal requirements of relevant laws/Acts (e.g. the Corporations Act) but that do not comply with the Code of Ethics.
• Demonstrate understanding of the relationship of the Code of Ethics to the professionalism of the entire industry.
• Apply different/multiple ethical frameworks to dilemmas and issues in scenarios.
• Apply the best interests duty and related obligations to clients in scenarios and identify consequences (practitioner, client, industry) of not acting in the client’s best interests.
• Identify when and under what conditions a practitioner should refer a client.
• Evaluate the importance of the best interests duty to a financial planner, their clients, their licensee and the industry.
• Analyse and identify individual biases and their influence on decision making.
• Analyse sources of judgement and biases and their influence on financial advice.
• Apply the legal requirements with regards to maintenance of client files.
• Evaluate examples of file maintenance in terms of the Code of Ethics.
• Demonstrate an understanding of what ‘due diligence’ means in terms of practice.

3. (FAC) Financial Advice Construction – suitability of advice aligned to different consumer groups – the learning outcomes are to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the context in which financial advice is given and requested and how this impacts decision making.
• Identify misconduct and inappropriate advice; evaluate why it is inappropriate.
• Identify appropriate alternative courses of action to inappropriate advice.
• Identify and compare different population and community profiles at a retail client level.
• Identify different types of consumer behaviour and decision making.
• Evaluate and apply advice strategies suitable for different retail clients.
• Demonstrate an understanding of risk, including client risk tolerance.