Avoid feeling foolish on April 1

The number of advisers registered for AFA accreditation ahead of the March 31 deadline looks like falling short of Securities Commission predictions of 5,000 AFAs.

Thursday, March 24th 2011, 7:34AM 3 Comments

by Benn Bathgate

Figures released yesterday from ETITO reveal just 2559 advisers have sat and passed the Standard Set B exam - the best indicator of AFA numbers.

While other assessments such as the Standard Set C have competency equivalents, Standard Set B is "the one exam every AFA has to do", according to the Securities Commission's Mel Hewitson.

"We suspect there will be quite a few that won't hit the March 31 deadline that will come in later," she said.

"I think we're probably more likely to end up by July 1 with somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 AFAs and then there'll be more that come after that."

The figures from training organisation ETITO come just 10 days ahead of the March 31 deadline for AFA registration. From April 1 it will be illegal for an adviser to provide financial services unless they are on the register (or acting on behalf of a QFE).

The figures revealed that as of March 21, 3028 advisers are booked for the Standard Set B exam and 2559 have passed, a pass rate of 75%.

For the Standard Set C, 281 candidates have completed the assessment and 987 are booked.

Hewitson said "advisers need not have finished all the required competency assessments by March 31 to apply to become an AFA by July 1, but they do need to have registered."

"They must have completed everything to become an AFA."

"If you're an adviser and you're wanting to be sure you'll get through by July 1 get your application into us by March 31, even if you haven't finished your competency assessments because we can be working on your application in parallel to you completing the competency assessments," she said.

Benn Bathgate is a business reporter for ASSET and Good Returns, email story ideas to benn@goodreturns.co.nz

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Comments from our readers

On 24 March 2011 at 8:40 am Fred said:

What will the levy be if 3028 AFA's are to cover the cost, as regs require.
The ratio must be about 1:1 of Securities Commission bureaucrats, Code committees, ETITO, DOA's, approved training orgs, per AFA.
Too much gov't looking for something to do. Power should be turned off.

On 24 March 2011 at 11:55 am murray weatherston said:

Not surprising that the number of AFAs is likely to be low.

In Version 1.01 of the regulatory scheme, just about everbody who drew breath might have had to have been individually authorised.

In the final version (20.10), so many people have been excluded from individual authorisation - lawyers, accountants, pure life agents, pure mortgage brokers, tied agents/employees working for QFEs, retail staff who process HP, etc etc.

Not really surprising that there are fewer left to be individually authorised.

Looks like the minimum costs so far to sit set B, register and apply for authorisation will be dwarfed by the initial Sec Com levy to cover all establishment costs since 1 January 2009

On 25 March 2011 at 7:27 am adam smith said:

Have you noticed that while the Securities Commission is counting down the days till 31 March on the front page of its website, it doesn't appear to be counting up the numbers of AFAs granted nor the number being processed - they have been stuck on 186 and 448 respectively for many days now

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