The National Finance Industry Training Advisory Body (NFITAB) is embarking on an ambitious scheme to collate and rank every education program across the financial services industry in a bid to assist practitioners and raise standards.
The initiative, which will see NFITAB drop its name to become the Financial Services Education Agency Australia (FSEAA) as of Monday, is partly due to practitioner and consumer confusion in relation to education and training.
According to NFITAB general manager Deen Sanders, there are 70 associations in the industry representing more than 600,000 employees.
“We will be able to provide details of what education is being offered and what it relates to. We’re looking to provide a unified voice for all those associations to be able to negotiate the right education outcomes for their people,” Sanders says.
NFITAB is a non-aligned industry body with a board drawn from the full spectrum of the financial services industry, having been established to act in an advisory and consultative capacity and to improve vocational education and training within the financial services sector.
The group is responsible for running the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) online education register, which has 668 courses offered through 153 providers.
However, Sanders says there is no detail within the register revealing whether a particular course is better than another and what it is likely to lead to.
“Essentially, we’re looking to unify the education marketplace across the industry and while it may not sound particularly sexy, all we’ve had in the past are single association models.
“There is a lot of association engagement these days and it’s difficult for licensees and individuals to make sense of it all,” Sanders says.
According to Sanders, ASIC would consider transferring full maintenance of its register over to the industry itself.
“Obviously, that’s a long-term evolutionary strategy. But ASIC is keen for the industry to take charge and that is exactly why we’re doing what we’re doing,” he says.
The NFITAB aims to represent all industry sectors, including, but not limited to, insurance, retail financial services, accounting, superannuation, financial planning, credit management mercantile agents, personal trustees, conveyancing, stock broking and loss adjusting.
