The corporate regulator, ASIC, is well advanced with work on an industry-wide public register of financial advisers to be up and running at the end of March.

The Government announced plans to establish the register in October 2014, and intends to make regulations relating to the register in coming days. ASIC is working with licensees and authorised representatives to assist them to provide the required information in accordance with the timetable in the planned regulations.

The register will contain details of all persons employed or authorised – directly or indirectly – by Australian financial services (AFS) licensees who are authorised to provide personal financial advice to retail clients on Tier 1 (investment) products. Tier 1 products are financial products other than basic banking products, general insurance products or consumer credit insurance products or a combination of any of those products.

It is intended the register will be accessible online from ASIC's MoneySmart website from 31 March 2015.

ASIC has a dedicated webpage www.asic.gov.au/far and encourages all licensees to subscribe via this webpage to receive email correspondence about the register. Licensees can also send questions about the register to far@asic.gov.au.