Treasury has released an Exposure Draft of the Corporations Amendment (Register of Relevant Providers) Regulation 2014 which will:

• enable ASIC to establish and maintain a public register of financial advisers; and
• for Australian Financial Service licensees to collect and provide information to ASIC concerning financial advisers that operate under their licence.

Currently financial services licensees are not required to provide ASIC with information on director or employee representatives that operate under their licence.

ASIC is currently only required to maintain public registers of licensees and authorised representatives of licensees.

These registers provide information on a licensee or authorised representatives’:

• registration/licence number;
• licensee name/authorised representative name;
• address;
• start date of registration/licence;
• history of previous licensees (for authorised representatives only);
• status (whether the licensee/authorised representative is currently authorised); and
• details of any conditions or restrictions about the registration.

As ASIC currently maintains registers of licensees and authorised representatives, but not other representatives of licensees, the total number of financial advisers operating in Australia is not known.

The new register will be limited to those providing personal advice on more complex products to retail clients.

Initially it will contain information of an adviser’s experience, their recent work history, the owner of the licensee they work on behalf, as well as information about whether ASIC has banned, disqualified or obtained enforceable undertakings in relation to them.

Later it is planned to also contain educational qualifications and professional association membership information.