Enrolments into the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA)’s Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner (FChFP) designation have increased to over 500 since late 2013, when the FChFP curriculum was relaunched with the AFA’s newly appointed education partner, Kaplan Professional.
“We are delighted with the growth in adviser enrolments which confirms our belief that the new FChFP curriculum is getting the balance right between technical skills and knowledge and the practical application of skills and knowledge,” said the AFA’s General Manager, Member Services & Campus AFA, Nick Hakes. “From the outset we wanted to create an education pathway for both new and existing advisers to acquire a post-graduate education. We also wanted to challenge traditional financial adviser education by focusing on the importance of the relationship between the client and adviser.”
As early adopters of the FChFP designation begin to graduate, Mr Hakes said there is evidence of material differences in the thinking of these advisers around their advice offer, their target market and around the delivery of advice.
“We are also seeing the outcomes of applying post-graduate thinking to existing financial advice practices in the form of a deeper understanding of business strategy, corporate governance and culture and significant skilling-up in technical advice strategies. What is unique with the FChFP is that the efforts of the adviser are focused on what is relevant to their core client segment. It means that the financial advice is better but so is the client experience. These four elements represent the four units of the FChFP.”
Mr Hakes also said adviser education is the sleeping giant of reform and offers advisers a way to help deal with current disruptive influences. “The Life Industry Framework is one example where advisers need to think about their business models,” he said. “Now is the time when many are choosing to hardwire post-graduate academic thinking into how they will provide great advice into the future. Life-long education has always been a core component of the AFA and we applaud new thinking for a new profession.”
The AFA is again reinvesting into the FChFP curriculum, focusing its efforts on making it even more relevant and practical for financial advisers to use as a tool as they adapt to the pressures they are under at the moment and the pressure to take advantage of the opportunities they have for the future.
Mr Hakes sits on the International Certification and Standards Board for the Asia Pacific Financial Services Association and said the AFA’s vision is to help make Australia a world leader in financial advice education. “We have one of the most mature and successful financial advice industries in the world and it therefore makes sense that the Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner as a new education benchmark for financial advisers, is grown and resides here in Australia,” he said.
