Advisers call for IMC to be made a degree

21 January 2010 | By Nicole Blackmore

Advisers are calling on the Chartered Insurance Institute to recognise the CFA Society of the UK’s investment management certificate as degree level rather than A level.

The CII awards credit points for its diploma to non-CII qualifications based on its perceived standard of those exams and has judged the IMC to be equivalent to an A level.

Master Adviser director Doug Brodie has written to CII chief executive Alexander Scott calling for the CII to address the matter.

In the letter, Brodie says: “I am sure this is an error. As a holder of the IMC, the CII’s G20 and G70 exams, the CII’s current categorisation of the former is clearly wrong. The scope and depth of the IMC exceeds that of the majority of CII exams judged to be at degree level. Such an obvious anomaly serves to lessen the perceived value of both Chartered status and the CII exam framework.

“To date, the investment- focused exams have been chiefly the remit of the Securities Institute and the CFA Society of the UK. I believe the CII needs to embrace qualifications issued by these two bodies to ensure that its diploma qualifications in financial planning remain relevant to the work being carried out by IFAs.”

Informed Choice managing director Martin Bamford says he supports Brodie’s calls “wholeheartedly”.

He says: “I am doing the IMC at the moment and I would place it at degree level rather than A level. It is very technic-ally challenging and demanding, certainly more so than the CII investment modules at dip- loma level.”

The Financial Services Skills Council says the IMC is curr- ently registered with Ofqual as a level-three qualification, which is equivalent to an A level.

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