TheAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) has responded to calls by financial planners to recognise pre-1995 training, announcing yesterday it would accept applications for the assessment of training courses started and completed before 1995 with a view to including them on the ASIC Training Register.
ASIC Financial Services Regulation licencing director Pauline Vamos says the decision to carry out the assessment has been driven by reaction from planners leading up to the July 1, 2002 deadline for Policy Statement (PS) 146 compliancy.
“Pre-1995 courses are not on there [the ASIC Training Register] and some of them [advisers] are starting to panic,” Vamos says.
The National Finance Industry Training Advisory Board (NFITAB) will assess each submitted pre-1995 course on behalf of ASIC, to determine if it meets the generic and specialist knowledge requirements under PS 146.
“We will be looking at content, delivery and time and how the course was assessed, and want to get a good feel that the course has substance,” NFITAB chief executive Catherine Chaffey says.
She says assessing the pre-1995 training courses will be a “two pronged” process. An initial screening will determine whether the application has been completed with enough information and all relevant evidence included, before the “full blown” assessment takes place.
Chaffey says while it is difficult to know the number of pre-1995 courses she believes a lot of applications will be lodged.
“There were a number of good courses in the 1980’s, and the assessment is really to make people who have completed those courses fit [PS 146] requirements,” she says.
“If an organisation can answer all the application questions and provide the necessary evidence, then there is a good chance the course is going to get through.”
According to ASIC, all pre-1995 courses which are assessed as meeting PS 146 requirements will still generally need to be supplemented with other training in the areas of regulation, compliance and disclosure.
