How to Read a Financial Adviser Profile

Every registered financial adviser in Australia has a profile on the ASIC Financial Advisers Register. That profile contains a significant amount of information - qualifications, authorisations, experience, registration history and disciplinary outcomes - but it is not always obvious what each section means or what to pay attention to. This guide walks through the key fields and what they tell you.

Registration status

The first thing to check is registration status. An adviser's status should show as "Current" for them to be legally authorised to provide personal financial advice. If the status shows as "Suspended," "Cancelled" or "Banned," the adviser cannot legally advise you - regardless of what they may tell you.

As an example, you can view the profile of Nicholas David Kidson, a Sydney-based adviser with a current registration and over 45 years of experience. His profile shows what a complete, active adviser profile looks like in this directory.

Registration status is updated by ASIC when it changes. This directory pulls from the ASIC register weekly, so any changes to an adviser's status will be reflected within a week. If you want to verify the most current status at any point in time, you can check directly on ASIC's MoneySmart website. Our guide on how to verify a financial adviser's ASIC registration covers this in detail.

Qualifications

The qualifications section lists the degrees, diplomas and other credentials the adviser has provided to ASIC. Post-2019, all new advisers must hold an approved degree-level qualification before they can be registered. Advisers who were already registered before 2019 had until January 2026 to meet the new education standards under the FASEA framework.

Common qualifications you will see include degrees in financial planning, commerce or business, as well as diplomas of financial planning and postgraduate qualifications. You may also see older credentials like PS146, which was the pre-FASEA training standard. Our guide on FASEA education standards for financial advisers explains what the different qualifications mean and how the standards changed.

Note that the qualifications shown are what the adviser has reported to ASIC - ASIC does not independently verify every qualification listed. If a specific credential is important to you, you can ask the adviser to provide evidence directly.

Authorisations

The authorisations section shows which financial products the adviser is licensed to advise on. This is one of the most important fields on the profile because it determines what advice the adviser can legally give you.

Common authorisation categories include superannuation, life insurance (risk), life insurance investments, managed investments, securities, derivatives, deposit products and self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs). Some advisers also hold authorisation to provide tax financial advice services (TFAS), which allows them to incorporate tax advice into their broader financial planning service.

If you need advice on a specific area - superannuation, SMSFs or life insurance - check that the adviser holds the relevant authorisation before engaging them. An adviser can only legally advise you on products they are authorised for.

Years of experience

The profile shows the year the adviser first provided financial advice. From this you can calculate how long they have been in the industry. An adviser who started providing advice in 1995 has over thirty years of experience - they have seen the dot-com crash, the GFC, the COVID downturn and multiple regulatory cycles. That breadth of experience has real value, particularly for complex or long-term financial planning.

That said, years of experience is not the only measure of quality. A newer adviser who holds a strong degree qualification and is working under good supervision can provide excellent advice. Use experience as one data point among several, not as the sole criterion.

The licence holder

Every adviser operates under an Australian Financial Services licence - either their own or a licence held by a firm that authorises them. The licence holder's details appear on the adviser profile. This matters because the licence holder is responsible for supervising the adviser and ensuring they comply with their obligations.

Large licence holders include major financial planning groups and dealer groups with hundreds of advisers under them. Smaller licence holders may have only a handful. Some advisers hold their own licence, which means they are operating independently. Our guide on what an AFS licence is and why it matters explains the licence structure in more detail.

Disciplinary history

This is one of the most important sections on any adviser profile. If ASIC has taken regulatory action against an adviser - a banning order, a suspension, a written warning, or conditions imposed on their registration - that information appears here. It is public and freely available.

The absence of disciplinary history does not mean an adviser has never had a complaint made against them - AFCA complaints that are resolved without regulatory action do not appear on the ASIC register. But disciplinary history does mean ASIC has taken formal action, which is a significant indicator of past conduct.

Our guide on how to check a financial adviser's disciplinary history explains the different types of action, what they mean and what to do if you find something concerning.

Using this directory

Every adviser profile in this directory is built directly from the ASIC Financial Advisers Register, updated weekly. You can search by adviser name to find and verify a specific person, or browse by suburb and state to find registered advisers in your area. Each profile links directly to the ASIC register so you can verify the information independently. Use the interactive map to explore advisers near you.