Two financial services veterans have teamed up to create an education program to help new financial advice entrants through their professional year, as well as assisting existing advisers and accountants meet the recently introduced education and professional standards.
StrategistIQ, formed by I Love SMSF founder Grant Abbott and AccountantsIQ director Bronny Speed, will offer training modules over the four quarters of the professional year required for new advice entrants.
The training will be mapped to the requirements of four competency areas required by the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) and will be tracked via logbook entries and completion certificates for presentation to FASEA.
Existing advisers, with previous qualifications, will be provided with assistance in completing FASEA’s bridging courses to ensure they meet the authority’s new education standards before the start of 2024.
As part of that work, StrategistIQ will also help new and existing advisers prepare for FASEA’s adviser exam through trial questions, practice exams and workshops, as well as assist advisers in meeting relevant qualifications.
Speed said the education program was not intended to fill the roles currently occupied by universities, but to help advisers and their licensees get through the education hurdles that follow academic, tertiary-level training.
Further, StrategistIQ will assist advisers and accountants who are planning to specialise in any particular area to map their 1600 hours of training during the professional year to the competencies and to provide similar mentoring to existing advisers looking to specialise.
As such, the training modules will also include input around behavioural finance from Portfolio Construction Forum and aged care from Aged Care Steps, and will be offered at Australian Qualifications Framework level 8, according to Abbott.
