Associations should set CPD standards: SPAA
Professional associations should take over setting standards for continuing professional development (CPD) if adviser standards are to improve, according to the SMSF Professionals’ Association of Australia (SPAA).
SPAA CEO Andrea Slattery slammed the current minimum standard of education and competencies for financial advisers via the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s Regulatory Guide 146 (RG146) and singled out CPD as an example of why the system needs an overhaul.
“The need to undertake CPD is currently driven by a compliance-based approach where advisors are required to undertake a certain amount of CPD over a set period,” she said.
“This results in advisors often undertaking training that maintains their current knowledge to just meet the absolute minimum rather than being extended and challenged through new learning and improved knowledge.”
The recommendations come in SPAA’s submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on corporations and financial services, in which it stresses the need to lift professionalism in financial advice.
SPAA opines that by allowing professional associations to set the CPD standards for their members, it would challenge advisors’ skills instead of them simply seeing it as a compliance requirement.
Slattery said a compliance-based approach means financial advisers are aiming towards a minimum level to fulfil their compliance requirement “in a race to the lowest acceptable level” instead of aiming for enhanced skills.
Slattery said a co-regulatory approach to regulating financial advice should be adopted. She also suggested requiring professional association membership for market participants, and establishing professional remuneration models.
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