Financial advisers can still satisfy their CPD requirements through industry events and conferences even if they are more weighted to a particular area of training, according to the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA).
Responding to comments by I Love SMSF founder Grant Abbott reported yesterday that any CPD training provided at an industry event exceeding the hours listed by FASEA was excessive, AFA policy and professionalism general manager Phil Anderson said those hours of training could be put towards filling additional required hours of CPD.
Anderson said the minimum amount of time required across the four mandatory knowledge areas was 24 hours, and any additional training in one of those four areas could be counted towards the 16 hours needed to complete the total of 40 hours of CPD.
In releasing its CPD standard, FASEA stipulated advisers would be required to complete five hours of training each year in the technical, client care and practice, and regulatory compliance and consumer protection knowledge areas and nine hours of training in the professionalism and ethics knowledge area.
Referencing the notion that 18 hours of technical CPD training at an event went beyond the FASEA requirements, and as such may end up being irrelevant, Anderson said the minimum requirement for technical was five hours, but the minimum total amount across the four mandatory knowledge areas was only 24 hours.
“There is an additional 16 hours that will count and that could certainly include technical content. So technically, if you went to a conference with 18 hours of technical content, it could all count,” he said, adding the same could apply for CPD undertaken in the other three knowledge areas.
“We think conference organisers will arrange the curriculum to ensure that they can maximise the CPD value that is obtained. Conferences will remain an important part of the overall CPD regime.”
He also said the introduction of the hours-based CPD model was a cleaner standard than that used in the past.
“The hours-based model will lead the professional world because in the past, hours attained did not always equate to hours of training, and under the FASEA model every adviser would do 40 hours of training each year,” he noted.
