AMP planners go back to school

AMP Financial Planning (AMPFP) will demand its more than 1,200 authorised representatives sit an annual exam as of next year before they can continue practicing under the banner of Australia’s largest dealer group.

The move, however, is not a snub to industry accreditations such as the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) or Diploma of Financial Planning designations, according to AMPFP managing director Greg Kirk.

“In part, those qualifications are adequate, but they actually say that in a point in time you were qualified. We want to ensure that at any point in time our planners’ knowledge is relevant,” he says.

According to Kirk, the new accreditation program aims to raise standards within the group and build consumer confidence.

“For us, it comes back to our strategic aspirations and that is we want to own the quality of advice banner in Australia for licensees,” Kirk says.

The program was also designed to improve AMP’s present continuing education programs, which include professional development days that Kirk admits were ‘ill conceived’ and ‘ill targeted’ for some planners.

“We felt that there was no point in us providing information for education purposes if there’s no interest from the person receiving the info, in other words, they’re only going through the process to get an education credit or already knew the info and switched off.

“Now we will be able to communicate on an individual basis and talk to them about where they wish to be and then we can look to fill the gaps, rather than just provide ill-directed development,” Kirk says.

The exam will not be marked in a pass/fail format and Kirk says results will only be used to identify each adviser’s individual strengths and weaknesses — criteria which will be used for follow up training.

“If there is still no progression — well the quality of the input or the quality of the student comes under question.”

Planners will be tested on areas like their technical skills in wealth creation, preservation and utilization as well as their portfolio construction, customer service and strategic planning abilities.