“We are still in a position where less than half the advisers on the Financial Adviser Register have successfully completed the exam,” Mr Ashenden said in a recent BT podcast.

“No doubt a number of advisers are potentially waiting out the COVID-19 environment in order to complete the exam in person rather than digitally, but this must surely only be a small portion of the 54 per cent who are yet to complete it.”

While the extension to the end of 2021 to complete the exam has been broadly welcomed by the industry, Mr Ashenden said it will be important to see how many choose to sit the exam in the remaining October and November sittings in 2020.

“What we need to be conscious of as an industry is how many advisers will actually choose not to sit the exam at all, which at the end of 2021 will mean they will no longer be able to provide advice,” he stated.

“[This] could have a significant impact on the number of advisers who are in a position to be able to provide personal advice to Australians. With the widely forecast difficult economic environment ahead, it may be that more Australians will want to rely on the expertise of a financial adviser to guide them through these complex and challenging times.”

In the latest exam statistics released by FASEA, it was indicated that the performance rate of advisers sitting the exam a second time had improved.

“For this cohort, the pass rate was 65 per cent, which was an 11 per cent improvement on the long-term average,” Mr Ashenden said.

“This increase is a welcome sign, and it would be reasonable to suggest that FASEA now releasing details on those areas where advisers have experienced difficulties in prior sittings may have helped these advisers to focus more on these problem areas.”