City watchdog to reform industry qualifications

The new framework for financial services qualifications will:

• Set standards for the development of a single, modular exam system, ensuring consistency as well as flexibility;
  

• Simplify the alphabet soup of qualifications, making it clearer for everyone consumers, employers and new entrants to the industry to see what a person is qualified to do;
  

• Streamline the current plethora of exams and, where possible, develop internationally recognised standards so that employees are able to move jobs more easily, both within the UK and also abroad;
  

• Establish performance measures for the administration and delivery of FSA-approved exams;
  

• Require employees to demonstrate that they are keeping up-to-date with developments in the marketplace.

David Jackman, FSA Head of Industry Training and Business Ethics Adviser said:

"A single qualifications framework, together with a clear system of designatory letters, will benefit everyone consumers, employees and firms.

Consumers will be able to quickly recognise appropriately qualified advisers.

It will ensure that in a rapidly changing regulatory environment, all advisers are qualified to meet consumers needs. Recognised qualifications will also make it easier for employees to move between jobs, whether at home in the UK or abroad.

And firms will find that a single, modular system of qualifications makes sense, both in terms of recruitment and training."

Todays plans were initially considered in FSA Discussion Paper 9: 'Examination Review'. More than 120 responses to the paper were received, with the majority pledging broad support for the proposals set out in the Examination Review. A summary of these responses is published today, in a Feedback Statement.

The next step will be to identify the competencies that are required to undertake job roles and then to build qualification specifications around those competencies.

Proposals for the investment advice qualification framework will be published in a consultation paper due out in September 2002. It will reflect recommendations from current reviews, including polarisation, the Tiner Review on Insurance, the draft Insurance Intermediaries Directive and the Sandler Review.

Notes for editors

1. DP9 was published in December 2001 and is available on www.fsa.gov.uk

2. More details of next steps for investment advice can be found in chapter 9 of the Feedback Statement to DP9: Examination Review at www.fsa.gov.uk

3. The FSA regulates the financial services industry and has four objectives under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000: maintaining market confidence; promoting public understanding of the financial system; securing the appropriate degree of protection of consumers; and fighting financial crime.

4. The FSA aims to maintain efficient, orderly and clean financial markets and help retail consumers achieve a fair deal.