ETITO manager of corporate relations and strategy Michael Frampton says ETITO made it "abundantly clear" last month that those advisers who wished to be certain that they had access to examinations and assessment in time for the authorisation deadline, had to be booked by October 29.

Last month only 1,843 advisers had registered with ETITO, and of those, 1,452 advisers had activated their registrations. This has now increased to 3,030 registrations with 2,153 being made active.

Only 178 advisers last month had made an assessment reservation for a Standard Set B examination and this has now increased to 564. Just 40 had registered for assessment against the requirements of Standard Set C and now 109 have made bookings.

Frampton says these numbers show a noticeable increase in advisers being prepared but ETITO is concerned that there will still be many advisers who will experience difficulty in accessing assessments and examinations in the first half of next year.

ETITO is required to examine Standard Set B and assess Standard Set C as these are capstone standard sets within the National Certificate in Financial Services [Financial Advice] [Level 5].

To date, ETITO has been advised that there are an estimated 4,600 advisers enrolled with registered and accredited training providers for courses of training and education to the National Certificate programme. However, some of these will be category two advisers becoming voluntarily authorised.

Frampton says it is difficult to quantify just how many financial advisers will be seeking authorisation but the general consensus is that there are potentially between 5,000 and 7,500 individuals.

Advisers can start preparing themselves for examinations and assessments once they have booked them in for the period between October 29 and March 31.

The Securities Commission has made it clear that all financial advisers must have applied for authorisation by 31 March in order for their application for authorisation to be processed before 01 July.

Frampton says if the system is fully utilised from October 2010, there is sufficient capacity for the demand ETITO estimates.

Frampton also says advisers need to factor in the possibility that they may need to re-sit examinations or assessment.