Brad Fox
The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) is setting the record straight following media reporting yesterday on the curriculum of the AFA’s professional financial adviser designation, the Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner (FChFP).
“A media article yesterday wrongly reported that the AFA’s FChFP enables advisers without degrees to complete four subjects of a non-technical nature and that not one of these subjects requires an ethics component,” says AFA CEO Brad Fox. “This is quite simply wrong – in fact, the FChFP does require extensive technical knowledge assessment and as to ethics, subject four, which represents one quarter of the designation, is focused on ethics and professional conduct and the entire course is set at the Masters level.
Mr Fox says the FChFP is designed to equip advisers with the formal education, technical knowledge and practical skills they need to provide highly valued advice and service outcomes that meet the needs of today’s consumers.
“The FChFP has been built to reflect the demand for increased professionalism from Australia’s financial advisers and the prerequisites have been set to facilitate pathways for new entrants seeking a financial advice career, and just as importantly, to support experienced financial advisers to upskill and meet expectations of higher education standards,” he says.
The AFA is firmly convinced that professional financial advice is the outcome of a combination of formal education and practical experience. “Professional financial advice is the result of the right knowledge, attitudes, actions and behaviours of advisers. Both advisers with a relevant degree and those with other qualifications and good experience, but without a degree, need to have access to a professional designation course that supports them in the provision of quality financial advice,” Mr Fox says. “While we see a degree entry standard for a career as a financial adviser as being appropriate in the foreseeable future, it is essential that we transition sensibly towards that outcome.”
At a time when Australians need financial advice more than ever before, Mr Fox says the AFA has developed the FChFP to help consumers get quality financial advice from new entrants to the profession and those many ethical, experienced, and valued advisers who need to gain recognized educational qualifications at the Masters level. “The FChFP is the most effective professional pathway by which an experienced adviser without a degree can attain a qualification that is assessed at a standard higher than that required by a student completing an undergraduate degree,” he says.
“It is very disappointing to see inaccurate reporting around an issue as important as financial adviser education. This kind of reporting runs the risk of further undermining consumer confidence to seek the financial advice that they need.
“Our experience is that advisers are proactively embarking on the journey to higher educational and qualification standards. What the AFA is determined to do is ensure that this training translates into quality financial advice outcomes for consumers and that advice theory is converted into the professional actions and behaviours of advisers.”