RDR: Advisers must hold statement of professional standing
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Advisers must hold a statement of professional standing, which will give independent verification that they are meeting new professional standards under the RDR, but membership of a professional body will not be mandatory.
In today’s RDR consultation paper on professionalism, the FSA says it will accredit bodies to award statements of professional standing.
The regulator says it considered making membership of a professional body mandatory but has decided against this approach.
The FSA will take responsibility for policing professional standards rather than creating an independent professional standards board. It says a separate body would confuse consumers and would lead to a duplication of roles and responsibilities between the IPSB and the FSA.
But the FSA says it expects professional bodies to have “disciplinary measures that involve a range of sanctions”.
The paper states: “As we are introducing a requirement for firms to ensure that their advisers provide documentary evidence of verification, we expect the potential threat of the body withdrawing such evidence would be an effective deterrent against non-compliance with requirements.”
Professional bodies will have the power to withdraw verification of an adviser if it deems that the appropriate standards are not being met.
The FSA says from 2013 advisers must complete a minimum of 35 hours of relevant CPD each year, with at least 21 hours of this being structured learning.
Advisers already studying for an RDR compliant qualification will need to fill any gaps in their learning with CPD and the regulator is consulting on whether this will need to be independently verified by an accredited body.
Any relevant structured CPD activity that advisers have already completed can count towards this gap filling.
The FSA will move forward with plans to publish adviser qualifications on the FSA register by providing links to individual advisers’ accredited bodies.
The consultation will close to responses on September 24, 2010.
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Readers' comments (26)
Martyn Sinclair | 28 Jun 2010 11:12 am
I think a lot of people are getting totally bored with the strategy changes to RDR, Statement of Principles, licensing, CPD, policing, which form to sign, compliance, FSA, FOS and the list goes on and on. I am all for compliance and accountability, but its gone beyond the stage where its even understandable. How on earth are members of the public supposed to understand when a degree educated, chartered practioner with 25 years industry experience, with a perfect record in sales, now needs to employ a consultant costing £45,000 a year to translate all the papers coming out of Canary Wharf. When the costs of tagged on to client invoices, the FSA then complain we are possibly overcharging. Our invoices now show a supplement of £43 per hour, which we are able to easily justify under the heading "FSA and regualtory costs". I wonder whether this is compliant???
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Anonymous | 28 Jun 2010 11:17 am
When will regulators learn that new people need differnt things to those who have been in the industry for rather longer than they like to remember . The NHS is getting away from this approach and the FSA are bringing it in . After 50 years of aquiring knowledge going to two seminars a month listening to people who probably know less than we do is not appealing . Please please , after you have been in the industry a reasonable time , you learn by finding out , not going to seminars
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Anonymous | 28 Jun 2010 11:18 am
Another day another dictate from the FSA, could they be overstaffed as well as overpaid and searching desperatley to justyfy their existance?
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lol | 28 Jun 2010 11:59 am
Any bets on whether or not this stance will have changed by Jan 2013?
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Anonymous | 28 Jun 2010 12:00 pm
Another "bright" idea from people with nothing to do but make things complicated and expensive.
Bit like watching England football team everyone says they are world class but the performance says not.
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David Trenner - Intelligent Pensions | 28 Jun 2010 12:02 pm
"After 50 years of aquiring knowledge going to two seminars a month listening to people who probably know less than we do is not appealing . Please please , after you have been in the industry a reasonable time , you learn by finding out , not going to seminars"
The regulators have a problem in differentiating between those with 30 years' experience and those with 1 year's experience 30 times over. Those of us who fall in the first category tend to get lumped in with those in the second category in the eyes of the regulators.
By the way, if you ever come to one of my seminars I hope you will find that I know more than you do .... or are you another boring old techie?!
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Anonymous | 28 Jun 2010 12:26 pm
George Orwell couldn't have spelt the Big Brother syndrome any clearer! When oh when will all this stupidity end!
My clients are now starting to complain when I can't fit an appointment in my diary for 2 months due to exams, studying, filling out Gabriel reports, CPD etc etc etc!
No wonder there are fewer and fewer people joining this industry - it is a very sad day and unfortunately the poor consumer will lose out the most.
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Andy | 28 Jun 2010 12:27 pm
Perhaps we should be like Ryanair who are transparent in their pricing re; taxes, Card charges and cost of FARES.
Should all our KFI's have "a cost of FSA fees disclosure" , "cost of statement of professional standing", "Investor Compensation scheme" etc etc. Don't our clients need to be treated fairly and have the true costs of regulation disclosed along with the cost of advice? Martyn Sinclair is right to include a £per hour for FSA and regulatory costs.
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Anonymous | 28 Jun 2010 12:46 pm
What on earth is going on I had rather hoped that this new Government with its mandate to reduce the nanny state might have had some affect on the overpaid beaurocrats at the FSA. I attended a meeting a few years ago where John Redwoood was quite emphatic that the FSA would be severely reduced and its idiotice rule replaced by more sensible ones. So what is happening?
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Anonymous | 28 Jun 2010 1:16 pm
So, does anyone at the FSA complete 35 hours of CPD each year ?
Most of what an IFA does is not rocket science. Yes, there is a need to keep up to date but 2 hours a month of structured CPD just simply to prove that you are capable of doing the same job that you've been doing for 20 years - with diploma level exams and hundreds of hours of CPD and thousands of hours of experience already under your belt, these jobsworths are taking the mick by changing the goalposts once again.
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