A new financial adviser’s first 90 days are mostly training, supervised meetings and a great many conversations, with little income to show for it. That is normal. Commission follows the work by weeks or months, so the useful measure early on is activity you control, not sales you do not.
This guide describes what onboarding typically involves, what the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) expects firms to teach you, and a weekly plan you can adapt.
Before Day One: You Cannot Advise Yet
Passing the exams does not make you an adviser. You can only advise clients once your firm has notified MAS and your name appears on the public Register of Representatives. See requirements and the register.
Until then you can study products, learn the firm’s systems and sit in on meetings as an observer. You cannot recommend a product or help anyone complete an application.
What Onboarding Training Should Cover
MAS’s Guidelines on Fair Dealing expect firms to train and assess representatives before they advise. In a review published on 4 December 2025, MAS listed weaknesses it found at some firms. Read in reverse, they make a useful checklist of what good onboarding includes:
- The prospecting approach. How you may and may not approach people.
- The case submission process. Forms, documents, checks and timelines.
- Compliance. The firm’s own policies, not just the exam syllabus.
- Product training before you advise on that product. MAS criticised firms that let representatives advise on investment products before finishing the relevant training.
- Training materials the firm has reviewed. Including anything provided by outside trainers.
MAS also noted good practices, such as quizzes of varying difficulty and tools that let representatives compare similar products across providers.
If your onboarding skips any of these, ask for it. It is your name on the register and your pay on the line under the Balanced Scorecard.
The Skill to Learn First: The Fact-Find
Before any recommendation, MAS Notice FAA-N16 requires three things: know your client, analyse their needs, and document it.
A new adviser who can run a calm, thorough fact-find is ahead of one who has memorised every product brochure. Practise until you can do the following without notes:
- ask about income, expenses, dependants, debts, savings, existing policies and goals,
- record the answers accurately and without steering them,
- identify the gap, if there is one, and
- explain why a recommendation fits, or say that nothing is needed.
Tools can make these conversations more concrete, where your firm approves their use:
- The budget planner settles what the client can afford before any product comes up.
- The protection gap calculator compares existing cover with what dependants might need.
- The money clarity check helps a client rank their priorities.
- The emergency fund calculator often shows that savings come before a new policy.
- The recommendation scorecard lets the client score your recommendation. Offering it shows confidence in your own advice.
Clients will also expect you to know the basics: how CPF accounts work, what MediShield Life and CareShield Life already cover, and the difference between whole life and term insurance.
Joint Field Work
Most firms pair new advisers with a supervisor or senior for early meetings. It usually moves through three stages:
- Observe. You watch a full meeting, from opening to fact-find to follow-up.
- Assist. You run part of the meeting, often the fact-find.
- Lead. You run it; the senior observes and debriefs you afterwards.
Three things to settle early:
- Commission splits. Ask how a jointly closed case is shared, and for how long joint cases are expected.
- Whose client it is. If the senior introduced the prospect, ask who services the client afterwards.
- What you are being taught. A good senior shows you how to ask and listen. If you are mainly shown how to overcome objections and close quickly, notice that.
The First Clients
Most new advisers start with people they know. This is sensible, and it carries risks.
- The same rules apply. A friend is owed the same fact-find, suitability and disclosure as a stranger.
- Reviews are legitimate work. Offering to go through someone’s existing policies and gaps is useful to them, even if nothing is sold.
- Be careful with replacements. Advising someone to give up an existing policy for a new one can cost them heavily in the early years. An unnecessary switch made for the adviser’s benefit is one of MAS’s listed examples of a serious infraction.
- Some clients need extra care. Since the December 2025 changes to Notice FAA-N16, a client who meets two of three conditions (aged 62 or older, not proficient in English, or below O-Level or N-Level education) must be treated as a “selected client” with additional safeguards. Your firm will have a process. Follow it.
- Warm contacts run out. Start building other sources of introductions in month one, not month six.
Use only marketing materials your firm has approved, as MAS Notice FAA-N03 requires. Ask your firm how its approval process applies to your social media posts.
A New Financial Adviser’s First 90 Days: A Realistic Weekly Plan
You cannot control whether someone buys. You can control how many people you speak to, how many fact-finds you complete and how well you prepare.
The plan below is an illustration to adapt with your supervisor. The numbers are examples, not an industry standard.
| Day | Morning | Afternoon | Evening |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Team meeting; plan the week | Product or process training | Contact 10 people to arrange meetings |
| Tuesday | Study one product in depth | Prepare for the week’s meetings | One client meeting |
| Wednesday | Paperwork and follow-ups | Joint field work with a senior | One client meeting |
| Thursday | Training or role-play practice | Contact 10 people; ask for introductions | One client meeting |
| Friday | Case submissions; compliance checks | Review the week with your supervisor | Free |
| Saturday | Two client meetings | Roadshow, event or community activity | Free |
| Sunday | Rest | Rest | Plan next week |
Track four numbers each week:
- people contacted,
- meetings held,
- fact-finds completed, and
- introductions received.
If those numbers are steady for 12 weeks, sales usually follow. If they are low, no amount of product knowledge will make up for it. Keep the record honest: it is also the best evidence, at day 90, for deciding whether to continue.
The short version: In the first 90 days, expect training, supervised meetings and little income. Learn the fact-find before the sales pitch, count conversations and not commissions, and treat every early client, including family, as if the sale will be audited. It may be.
Signs the firm is not supporting you
- No structured training after the first week.
- Pressure to sell to family before you understand the products.
- Being asked to advise on a product you have not been trained on.
- A supervisor who is rarely available for joint meetings or debriefs.
- Being told to use unapproved scripts, posts or materials.
One of these is a reason to ask questions. Several are a reason to revisit how to choose an agency.
What To Do Next
- Write your own weekly plan and agree the activity numbers with your supervisor.
- Practise the fact-find with three people who will give you honest feedback.
- Check your savings against the runway in the costs of starting.
- Re-read the conduct rules before your first solo meeting.
- At day 90, review your activity record and decide your next 90 days. The career guide links to the rest of this series.
