About financial counselling
Financial counsellors provide assistance, advocacy and information to people experiencing financial difficulty or who have problems with debt.
Financial counsellors provide assistance, advocacy and information to people experiencing financial difficulty or who have problems with debt.
In Victoria, financial counsellors are highly skilled professionals who work within a framework of social justice and a model of client empowerment. Service is always free, independent, confidential and without conflict.
How can a financial counsellor help?
A financial counsellor can provide the following support to their clients:
- Advise and assist with problems related to debt and debt enforcement
- Advocate and negotiate with banks and other lenders
- Assist with concessions, grant eligibility and applications as well as referral for material aid
- Assist with lodging complaints to external dispute resolution services
- Refer to other community, health and legal services
- Provide information about consumer rights
Financial counsellors do not:
- lend money
- provide material aid
- recommend any kinds of loan products
- do tax returns
- provide debt consolidation services
- provide financial product advice, or
- deal with investments
Where do financial counsellors work?
Most financial counsellors work in community organisations, government health and aged care agencies. The majority of funding for these agencies is provided by state and federal governments.
Financial counsellors must work for an agency that meets the ASIC requirements for exemption from a financial services licence or a credit licence. Financial counsellors are paid wages through these agencies under an appropriate award, funded through state or federal government or other philanthropic initiatives.
How do I become a financial counsellor?
In order to practice as a financial counsellor in Australia, you must hold the Diploma of Financial Counselling, be eligible for membership of your state financial counselling association, and meet the annual requirements for continuous professional development and professional supervision.
Volunteering as a financial counsellor
Financial counsellors are employed by agencies – typically not for profit community organisations – that must comply with the ASIC licence exemption provisions for financial counselling. These provisions are specified in the ASIC Corporations (Financial Counselling Agencies) Instrument 2017/792 and the National Consumer Credit Protection Regulations, which enable financial counsellors to work without holding a credit or financial services licence. The conditions of the exemption require the financial counselling service to be free, independent and without conflict. The requirement for no conflict means industry cannot directly fund financial counselling positions, which are primarily funded by state or federal governments, or through philanthropic sources.
While financial counselling is required to be a free service to anyone experiencing financial hardship, its practitioners are qualified professionals, employed within the scope of the ASIC instrument. As professionals, practitioners are almost always paid employees. Sometimes a financial counsellor may work as a volunteer in that role, but whether or not they are paid, the work must be done as part of an agency that satisfies the conditions of the ASIC instrument.
For this reason, volunteer financial counsellor roles are uncommon, and mostly occur in circumstances where an organisation is seeking to build a case to apply for funding to address a service gap. Anyone practising as a financial counsellor, whether paid or voluntary, is required under the ASIC instrument to be eligible for membership of their state financial counselling body (in Victoria that is FCVic), which involves undertaking regular training to ensure their practice meets professional standards.
There are other roles working alongside financial counselling that may provide avenues for volunteer work, such as financial literacy or financial capability worker roles, which do not have the same regulatory and professional requirements as financial counselling.