{"id":27194,"date":"2014-08-26T17:33:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T07:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=27194"},"modified":"2014-09-10T07:03:12","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T21:03:12","slug":"large-institutions-move-on-advice-education-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2014\/08\/26\/large-institutions-move-on-advice-education-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"Large Institutions Move on Advice Education Standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Westpac, AMP and the National Australia Bank (NAB) have all announced new, minimum education standards for planners working in their advice networks.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/a>
BT’s Matt Englund<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Westpac\/BT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Advisers in the Westpac-aligned BT Financial Group advice business, which includes Westpac Financial Planning, St George Financial Planning, Securitor and Licensee Select, will soon need to hold a relevant degree qualification in order to maintain their representative status.<\/p>\n

Under the new standards, all existing and new advisers must hold either a Certified Financial Planner (CFP), a Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner (FChFP), or Masters in Financial Planning (MoFP) qualification within five years. Alternatively, and in recognition of the large number of accountants within the network, advisers can choose instead to hold a financial planning certification from one of the recognised accounting bodies.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for BT said the organisation believes these education levels should form the basis of industry minimum standards by 2019, and that it was committed to taking an industry leadership position on this issue.<\/p>\n

BT\u2019s Managing Director of Securitor and Licensee Select, <\/span>Matt Englund<\/strong>, posted a YouTube message to advisers on 21 August to address the reasons behind the initiative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Englund said the introduction of increased adviser education standards had been on the agenda for a number of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor as long as I\u2019ve been part of the Securitor network, you\u2019ve been telling me that the education standards for financial advisers are too low,\u201d Mr Englund said in his video to advisers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur message here is simple. We believe that all advisers who give personal advice to clients should be really, appropriately qualified, and RG146 isn\u2019t going to cut it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rob<\/a>
Rob Caprioli, AMP’s Group Executive Advice and Banking<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AMP<\/strong><\/p>\n

AMP has announced similar measures for its advice networks.<\/p>\n

Using its half yearly profit update as a platform for the announcement, AMP advised that all new and existing advisers in the AMP network will be required to hold either a CFP, FChFP or MoFP qualification. New advisers will have five years to complete the qualification after joining an AMP licensee, while existing advisers will have until 31 December 2019 to complete the requirement.<\/p>\n

AMP Group Executive Advice and Banking, Rob Caprioli<\/strong>, said by enabling advisers to choose between the CFP, FChFP and MoFP designations, all advisers across the AMP Group (including AMP Financial Planning, Charter Financial Planning, Genesys Wealth Advisers, Hillross, Horizons, ipac and smsf advice) would have access to relevant qualifications.<\/p>\n

AMP will also develop an ethics and responsible decision-making program for financial advisers. The program will be developed in conjunction with the St James Ethics Centre, and will be available to all advisers from mid-2015.<\/p>\n

\"NAB<\/a>
NAB Wealth Group Executive and MLC CEO, Andrew Hagger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NAB\/MLC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, NAB\u2019s wealth management arm, MLC, has introduced a degree requirement for its financial advisers.<\/p>\n

New advisers recruited to NAB Financial Planning will be required to have a relevant degree qualification as well as an Advanced Diploma in Financial Planning, or be working towards completing this within three years.<\/p>\n

Existing financial planners will be required to hold the CFP designation, or be working towards obtaining this designation. The group has given its existing advisers until 2017 to obtain the CFP certification, or a deadline of 2019 if incorporating a Masters degree along with the CFP accreditation.<\/p>\n

In addition, all NAB financial advisers will continue to hold a membership with a recognised professional association.<\/p>\n

NAB Wealth Group Executive and MLC CEO, Andrew Hagger<\/strong>, said the group strongly supported moves across the industry to lift education standards and boost transparency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith an ageing population that is living longer and facing a significant shortfall in retirement savings, the provision of affordable and trusted financial advice to help consumers secure their future is more important than ever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that MLC was supportive of an enhanced national register of financial advisers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMLC has long championed transparent financial advice and a fee for advice model, and a stronger national register is another step in ensuring we are continually improving transparency across the industry,\u201d Mr Hagger said.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth Bank was the first large institution to announce minimum education standards for financial advisers (see:\u00a0CBA Commits to Adviser Associations, Education Benchmarks<\/a>). To have your say on this issue, click here<\/a> to contribute to our poll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Westpac, AMP and the National Australia Bank (NAB) have all announced new, minimum education standards for planners working in their advice networks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,248],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-compliance-regulation","category-dealer-groups","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}