Target Audience: Following the Retail Distribution Review, all IFAs will be committed to taking 25 hours CPD each year. IFAonline are developing a portal to provide professional and up to date training through e-learning for this market.
Potential Audience
With over 30,000 registered users, IFAonline already has access to the majority of IFAs. At the moment this audience will use a variety of methods to receive their training. By providing IFAs with e-learning we are making it easier for them to fulfil this obligation at a time and place of their own choosing.
Format
The format would be a series of courses which each last between 30 and 60 minutes. The subjects will be presented by professional trainers. Sponsorship opportunities exist for the portal as a whole, and for specific subjects. This video is a sample. It is shorter than a course would be, but illustrates the approach that will be taken.
The following course titles will be developed for each group of advisers.
Mortgage Advisers:
- Regulation overview for Mortgage Advisers
- Other Statutory requirements e.g. DPA and AML
- Marketing and advertising rules
- Conducting mortgage sales
- Providing and evidencing advice
- Dealing with Mortgage risk
- Equity release schemes
- Appropriate protection for borrowers
- Supervising mortgage advisers
- Taxation and benefits knowledge for mortgage advisers
IFAs
- Regulation overview for IFAs including RDR
- Complaints procedures
- Legal Principles e.g. agency and utmost good faith
- Ethical behaviour
- Fact Finding
- Three subjects on Addressing Needs
- Protection Policies
- Savings and Investments
- Retirement Planning
- Wills and Trusts
Insurance Brokers
- Six subjects on Compliance/regulation:
- Handling Client Money
- Conflicts of Interest
- TCF
- Financial Crime
- Agency law
- Complaints Handling
These six subjects are unlikely to disappear in 2012 when the FSA changes its identity.
- As firms adjust their business models to ensure survival in the new environment, these seven subjects on Management and Business will be essential:
- Appraisal survival skills
- Presentations - advanced platform delivery techniques
- Basic business finance
- Time Management
- Personal effectiveness
- Negotiating optimum outcomes
- Managing meetings
