Competition in the compliance and training arena has heated up, with the announcement that Assessment Education Services will roll out its online compliance, assessment and training system.
The system is titled the Dealer Group Accreditation and Record Keeping System and allows advisers to track their own compliance needs ensuring they stay up to date, as well as providing summaries for use in compliance reviews with dealer groups or the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
AES director Joan Street says the system is in use by a large dealer group, and seven smaller dealer groups and individual planners. The system is aimed at planners who are competent but without relevant qualifications.
At present, very few groups are involved with tracking compliance, with APIR the most notable, or with the provision of online training and assessment, with IntegraTec dominating the market in that space.
However, Street says AES is not seeking to directly compete with these groups but provide a way for advisers to reach adequate levels of training within their own dealer group and tie that back into compliance standards at the same time. Part of that push are plans to add a continuing professional development (CPD) component to the service early next year.
AES was formed recently when Street, who was previously involved with education at the Securities Institute of Australia for more than 15 years, joined with colleague Bill Warner, also from the SIA, and Westpac Financial Services training executive James Ryan.
