ASIC and New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA) have announced mutual recognition arrangements for Australian and New Zealand financial advisers. This will enable financial advisers to provide services in each other’s countries based on the qualifications and experience they have attained from their home country. While the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition legislation already applies to Australian financial services licence holders, most of these licence holders are firms or companies. To enable individual financial advisers with relevant qualifications to operate on either side of the Tasman, both regulators recognised a need for a different mechanism based on the spirit of that legislation. FMA has granted an exemption for Australian qualified advisers allowing them to apply to be authorised financial advisers (AFAs) in New Zealand based on their existing Australian qualifications. Australian advisers who hold the specified qualifications will be exempt from the educational qualifications requirements for AFAs set out in the Code of Professional Conduct for AFAs, and will be able to hold a licence relevant to their practice area and qualifications in Australia. The exemption is also subject to a number of other restrictions and conditions, such as compliance with the New Zealand Code of Professional Conduct for AFAs. To enable New Zealand AFAs to operate in Australia, ASIC has amended its regulatory guides which set out the minimum training requirements for individual financial advisers in Australia. Recognition has been given to New Zealand AFAs and Qualifying Financial Entity (QFE) advisers to enable them to practise in Australia in certain areas.