Advisers' pre-emptive strike

Some advisers are getting the jump on new qualification requirements and enrolling now for extra study.

Wednesday, May 4th 2016, 6:00AM

by Susan Edmunds

David Greenslade

It is likely that when the review of the Financial Advisers Act is complete, registered financial advisers will need to complete a qualification, likely the level five certificate in financial services.

But some advisers are not waiting to be told and are starting to add new qualifications to their resumes now.

The Open Polytechnic said there had been a 7.5 per cent increase in enrolments in the financial services level five qualification last year compared to the year before. “So far this year we are tracking to see an increase again on those figures,” a spokeswoman said.

David Greenslade, of training provider Strategi, which also works with Skills, said there had been a rush of enrolments that started in October last year.

In April, there were 80 enrolments for the level five qualification, compared to about 50 the same time the year before.

Greenslade said many were new advisers who realised they needed level five. But others were already in the industry and wanted to upskill.

Some were authorised financial advisers who had obtained authorisation based on alternative qualifications and had only had to do standard set B, he said.

“They are coming back to backfill.”

He said the new standard set B was radically different and represented a larger requirement on advisers.

There was also new legislation that advisers needed to prove they fully understood such as the Financial Markets Conduct Act and Anti-Money Laundering legislation, which was not in place at the time some existing AFAs qualified.

But at Massey, numbers for the CFP qualification have remained stable. The university has stopped enrolments for the CLU designation because of low numbers.

Professional IQ College, which is run by the Insurance Brokers Association, also had not seen a big change ahead of the FAA review.

IBANZ chief executive Gary Young said: “I would expect when the changes are announced in July that we will see interest increase.”

Tags: Financial Advisers Act qualifications