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What is a DOFA?
DOFA stands for Date of First Appointment. It is the date on which you were first appointed as a Representative under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act. Your DOFA is not the date you started your job, and it is not the date you wrote your RE5. It is the date your first FSP officially appointed you as a Representative on the FSCA register.
This single date drives most of your regulatory timelines. The clock for completing your Regulatory Exam, your full qualification, your class of business training and your product specific training all start ticking from your DOFA date. Miss those deadlines and the FSP you work for has to debar you.
If you have worked at more than one FSP, your DOFA does not reset. It stays linked to the first time you were ever appointed, even if there has been a gap in between.
Where to find your DOFA
The official source is the FSCA's Central Representative Register. You can access it through the FSCA website by searching for your name and ID number, or your FSP can pull your record from their compliance system. Most compliance officers can email you a copy of your representative profile in a few minutes.
Your DOFA usually shows up on the register as a field labelled Date of First Appointment, sitting alongside your appointed FSP, your categories and any conditions on your record. If you see more than one appointment listed, the earliest date is your DOFA.
It is a good habit to check the register at least once a year, and definitely whenever you change jobs. Mistakes happen, and they are easier to fix early than years later when a deadline is looming.
Why your DOFA matters
Your DOFA tells you when your Regulatory Exam was due, when your full qualification needs to be completed, when your class of business training and product specific training had to be in place, and when your CPD cycle resets each year. It also shapes whether you are still under supervision or can act on your own.
For employers, it is one of the first things a compliance team looks at when they consider appointing you. A clean DOFA record with all deadlines met is an asset. A messy one, with missed deadlines or unexplained gaps, will slow down or block a new appointment.
If you are not sure where you stand, ask your current compliance officer for a copy of your register entry and your deadline tracker. Knowing your DOFA, and the dates that run off it, is one of the simplest ways to protect your career.
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