{"id":30205,"date":"2015-07-13T17:34:01","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T07:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=30205"},"modified":"2015-07-14T07:34:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T21:34:29","slug":"new-financial-advice-designation-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2015\/07\/13\/new-financial-advice-designation-launched\/","title":{"rendered":"New Financial Advice Designation Launched"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">Industry consultant and training provider, <strong>Jim Stackpool<\/strong>, is behind the launch of a new specialist advice designation, intended to help consumers identify professional advisers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30206\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30206\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2015\/07\/Jim-Stackpool.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30206\" alt=\"Certainty Advice Group Managing Director, Jim Stackpool\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2015\/07\/Jim-Stackpool.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30206\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Certainty Advice Group Managing Director, Jim Stackpool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Certainty Adviser (CA) designation has been developed by Strategic Consulting and Training (SCAT) to differentiate advisers with the right skills and approach to remove financial complexity and deliver certainty for clients. To coincide with the launch of the designation, SCAT has been rebranded as <a href=\"http:\/\/certaintyadvicegroup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Certainty Advice Group<\/a>. The CA designation has been trademarked with IP Australia and is in the process of gaining a certification mark from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).<\/p>\n<p>In order to obtain the designation, advisers and accountants must meet three key criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They must serve the public good<\/li>\n<li>They must not receive any revenue or accept any financial benefit from a product or service provider<\/li>\n<li>They must adopt the fee and disclosure guidelines set out in the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standard Board\u2019s originally proposed APES 230 standard (which broadly outlaws commissions for all products including risk insurance and third-party payments)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Membership of Certainty Advice Group is $4,000 per year, and CAs pay an additional $1,000 to maintain their designation. The fees cover the cost of biannual audits, online forums, practical articles and content, ongoing support, and potentially client leads. Advisers must regularly provide evidence that their advice and practices are aligned to the Certainty Adviser model. They must also foster a collaborative culture of knowledge sharing and encouragement. Over time, there must also be quantitative evidence of customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n<h6>We want to reinvent advice and educate consumers about what advice should look like<\/h6>\n<p>Mr Stackpool said the new company name and designation reflected the group\u2019s sharper focus on partnering with advisers who specialise in the removal of uncertainty. Certainty Advice Group\u2019s mission, said Mr Stackpool, was to make advice irresistible and lay the cornerstone for an improved, compelling advice proposition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are continuing SCAT\u2019s work of helping advisers build productive, scalable and profitable practices only we have much bolder and ambitious goals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to reinvent advice and educate consumers about what advice should look like and ultimately deliver. In most cases, it will bear little resemblance to what they\u2019re likely to experience today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo far we are happy with the consumer reaction. Since the launch of my financial advice book for consumers last year, we\u2019re now getting 2000 hits per month on the book site. We introduce relevant enquiries to our certified advisers as part of our approach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Certainty Advice Group said it aims to attract over 100 advisers to the designation, and encourage them to talk widely about the value they add to clients\u2019 lives. There are currently 20 advisers with the CA designation, including Perth-based advice firm The Wealth Designers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur mission is to add greater financial certainty to peoples\u2019 lives and change the negative perception of the financial advice industry,\u201d The Wealth Designers General Manager, Paul Heatley, said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt won\u2019t be easy which is why we need to gather a group of accredited advisers working together to get the right message out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new designation will be officially launched at the group\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/jimstackpool.com\/ca-conference-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cultivating Advice Conference<\/a> to be held in Sydney this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Industry consultant and training provider, Jim Stackpool, is behind the launch of a new specialist advice designation, intended to help consumers identify professional advisers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,248],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-compliance-regulation","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30205","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=30205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}