Steve Helmich
AMPFinancial Planning(AMPFP) has launched a financial planning academy, comprising two new separate training and development programs for planners and paraplanners.
The first batch of 32 financial planner recruits began their first day of the inaugural 13-week ‘Horizons’ program yesterday, following the official opening of the Sydney-based AMP Financial Planning Academy.
AMPFP intends to accommodate three intakes of Horizons program recruits each year at the state-of-the-art academy, potentially providing the group with more than 90 additional planners a year.
The recruits will earn accreditation through classroom workshops delivered by industry specialists, presentations, online training, practical sessions with business coaches, and independent study.
Students will also return to the academy quarterly for 12 months following completion of the program to attend week-long refresher courses aimed at deepening their skills and knowledge base.
A first academy intake of 32 paraplanner recruits commenced the ‘Planner Pathway’ program late last month, which comprises more than 600 hours of training and development over 18 months.
Included in the Planner Pathway curriculum is a nine-month placement within AMP’s paraplanning team, where, among other skills, students learn how to develop financial plans.
AMP director financial planning, advice and services Steve Helmich said the academy is aimed at providing the dealer group with “high quality financial planners (and paraplanners) throughout metropolitan and regional Australia”.
Among its key objectives is the “creation of new AMP planning practices to increase the group’s financial planning footprint and also providing successors for planning practices when their principals want to retire”, he said.
The new programs are differentiated from other training courses currently in the marketplace by their “end-to-end approach, involving recruitment, education and placement programs”.
“We recruit prospective planners (and paraplanners), provide them with a comprehensive training program, and then place the graduates in existing AMPFP practices or help them to create their own practice,” he said.
