CII Calls UK Financial Services Qualifications ‘Bewildering’

The UK’s Chartered Insurance Institute issued a call to the industry to “engage in its initiative to streamline the bewildering structure of financial services qualifications in the sector, in a bid to improve consumer confidence and understanding.”

In its second position paper in response to the Financial Services Authority’s Retail Distribution Review (RDR) debate, the CII said “the lack of a simple standard framework for qualifications is widely agreed to be a major barrier to the better professionalism in financial services,” and called for simplification.

The first paper set out a number of requirements, that the organization intends to support to reach its goal. They include:
— A single framework of ethics and tiered technical/skills-based standards;
— a single, independent professional standards board for the retail financial services sector with a disciplinary function and substantial public interest representation;
— a new complaints system, reporting to the professional standards board as well as the professional body’s own governing board; and
— the introduction of meaningful sanctions to deal with serious breaches of the code of ethics.

The Institute proposes to overhaul the present system by making qualifications that can be “easily recognized and trusted by both consumers and employers alike.”

CII chief executive Sandy Scott stated: “This initiative is a response to industry and consumer concerns that financial services, unlike other professions have confusing and complex qualifications. We are not suggesting a single awarding or professional body, rather an agreed framework of qualifications that would be applicable to all. This would work in much the same way as the GCSE and A-level qualifications are standardized across the range of examining bodies that offer them in the UK.”

He also stressed that the “industry itself, not the regulator,” should be the ones who lead in developing a solution. “We hope this set of ideas will be favorably received in industry circles where I know there is strong support for awarding bodies working constructively together to achieve clarity and simplicity in the public interest. It would be a clear signal that the financial services industry is sorting out its own problems,” Scott concluded.

Source: CII – www.cii.co.uk