An assessment aimed at raising the standards and competence of financial advisers in the UK is to be rolled out by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) from 1 October 2018.
The CII has collaborated with the Financial Conduct Authority to create the non-mandatory ‘Regulated Retail Investment Adviser Re-evaluation’ test of the level 4 Diploma in Financial Planning.
Firms will be encouraged to use the test, with the FCA saying it may use as it a supervisory tool if it thinks “it is appropriate to ask firms to re-test specific advisers”.
Strengths and weakness
The objective of the assessment is to identify areas of strength and weakness in technical knowledge and its application.
The test will contain 100 questions across areas of the CII’s RO1-5 syllabi, prioritised by the potential for impact on the suitability of advice.
It will provide firms with the ability to independently assess their advisers’ knowledge and development needs against the industry standard.
The FCA and CII jointly stated: “We believe that advisers having a good level of knowledge is the foundation to giving sound financial advice.
“This is particularly the case with the more technical aspects of financial advice.”
