The race for the hearts and minds of financial planners looking to upgrade skills and qualifications has turned up a notch with the entrance of a partnership between Zurich Financial Services Australia and the University of Southern Queensland (USQ).
The race for the hearts and minds of financial planners looking to upgrade skills and qualifications has turned up a notch with the entrance of a partnership between Zurich Financial Services Australia and the University of Southern Queensland (USQ).
The course, which has been developed by USQ has been recently approved by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and will be delivered through an online service operated by Zurich. Zurich says it is the first online diploma level education product for financial planners.
Zurich Learning On-Line, a financial planning graduate certificate and diploma program, is aimed at advisers, specifically in line with new standards coming along with ASIC’s policy statement 146.
Zurich head of education, Julie Webster, says Zurich decided to launch its own study program, in partnership with Indelta — a specialist virtual learning arm of USQ — because of the opportunity to develop a curriculum that provided interac-tion missing in existing courses.
Webster says the course caters for advisers who are either too busy running a busi-ness to take time out to attend lectures or who are based in regional areas. She says the program allows advisers to log on at any time.
ASIC granted accreditation to the new course in March this year for all units of-fered under the policy statement 146which focuses on the training of authorised representatives.
“The course is an equivalent for Certified Financial Planner status, however, on an individual level, we haven’t got an equivalent to the DFP. We are planning to do it through the Financial Planning Association, but it just takes time,” Webster says.
A trial first semester was held earlier this year and, according to Webster, was ex-tremely successful with participants.
Zurich advisers and staff members will re-commence the program in semester two on July 10.
