RE5 — Representative Exam

The FAIS Act — Scope and Framework

Month one. Your first week at Thebe: a lanyard, a desk by the window, and a printed copy of the FAIS Act that Mokoena says you will carry until you can explain every page.

Maintaining the FSP Licence

Month two. Thebe is opening a Rosebank branch, the year-end statements are late, and a neighbouring one-man FSP has just lost its owner. Everything depends on one piece of paper: the licence.

Operating as a Representative

Months two and three. Your name is on the representative register and your first client is booked for Thursday. Before you speak to her, Mokoena wants you to know the clocks you are running against.

The FAIS Ombud

Month three. A registered letter from the Ombud lands on the Key Individual’s desk, and the Naidoo file becomes the firm’s first real test.

FSP Regulatory Compliance

Month four. The FSCA announces a visit in three weeks, and Thebe has to find out whether its Key Individual, compliance officer and paperwork would survive it.

Regulatory Tools

Month five. The FSCA’s visit is over, and two envelopes arrive on the boardroom table: a directive and a notice. Which is which, and what must Thebe do by when?

Representative Compliance and Fit & Proper

Month six. Pieter Venter asks you to sit in while Thebe appoints Zanele Dube, a promising recruit. The question is not whether she is impressive. It is what Thebe can prove, and what it must do if the proof ever stops being true.

Supervision Arrangements

Lerato Sithole has just joined Thebe as a new rep with gaps still to close. Her first weeks are the time to build her supervision arrangement properly, with you at the table.

The Debarment Process

Month eight. Six forged signatures land on the boardroom table, and Thebe must remove a colleague without breaking a single rule of fairness.

GCOC — Representative and Disclosure Duties

Month nine. The Naidoo file is closed, but Pieter Venter wants a Client Charter: one way of opening, running and closing every meeting so that no rep at Thebe can repeat that afternoon.

GCOC — FSP Duties, Advertising and Complaints

Month ten. A glossy trip invitation, a billboard mock-up and a complaint letter that sat unopened for a fortnight all land on Pieter Venter’s desk in the same week.

FICA and Money Laundering

Month eleven. The FSCA has announced a FICA inspection, and on a Wednesday afternoon a charming stranger walks in with R120 000 in a plastic bag.

Capstone: The RE5 Readiness Exam

Month twelve. The FSCA inspector is on her way for the year-end audit, and Mokoena has put every file from the year on the boardroom table, shuffled together. “The exam will not hand you the chapters in order,” she says. “Neither will an inspector.”