DIRECTOR, PHIL ORGAN, FEATURES IN “ADVISER POINTS OF VIEW”

Excerpt from Adviser Points of View:

The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) has announced it is going to introduce a new certified planner pathway with additional workbooks, training and support, in an attempt to help advisers become more certified.

Phil Organ, director at Yorkshire-based wealth management firm, Leodis Wealth says: “Quality financial advice is needed now more than ever, so creating the right approach to the training and development of our advisers is vital. The CISI has done the right thing – the sensible thing – by going back to the drawing board to overhaul the path to certified status.

“The industry is currently faced with a shortage of qualified paraplanners and financial advisers, and this needs to be addressed. However, the answer is not to “dumb down” financial planners’ qualifications, and that’s what the proposed pathway, quite rightly, seeks to avoid. The CISI’s new pathway has been developed in conjunction with practitioners, and this is encouraging.”

Creating quality advisers

Organ believes that the CISI has a role to play in creating quality financial advisers, but it is also up to individual firms too, to provide in-house training for their staff.

He says: “Firms will need to provide in-house training to run alongside the new pathway to ensure that graduates learn the softer skills that will allow them to flourish within the industry. This is time-consuming, and the rewards are longer-term, but good firms will succeed in retaining qualified planners if they adopt this approach.”

High demand

“There is a growing acceptance among the wider public that good financial planning is worth paying for and we need to meet the current high demand with top quality advisers. The job of the CISI is to provide quality training and certification, and this should be achieved with their new pathway. However, this cannot and should not be in isolation of each firm’s responsibilities to their trainees. We need to provide a well-rounded approach if we are to develop the best financial planners for our clients.”

 Read the full article here: https://www.adviserpointsofview.com/2019/01/cisi-in-push-to-make-advisers-more-certified/