News 11/2013: Chartered video, CPD changes & focus areas

Welcome to our new-style monthly newsletter, keeping you up to date with industry news and developments, and reminding you about the latest products and facilities you have available to you on the Wizard Learning website.

Achieving Chartered Status
We are often asked about achieving Chartered Status with the CII, so we have created this 5 minute audiovisual presentation to take you through the key points:

CPD: Keeping up-to-date on changes and issues
The October CPD monthly update, published as part of our CPD system, included 45 articles covering 8 financial services-related subject areas: Compliance & Regulation, Economy, Miscellaneous, Mortgages, Pensions, Protection, Savings & Investments and Taxation & Trusts.

The biggest section in our October update was Compliance and Regulation with a total of 12 articles covering a range of topics, including:

• The start of Phase 2 of the RDR review
• The possible extension to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme
• Business Risk Awareness (BRAW)
• The FCA’s greater powers of intervention with regard to those in controlled functions
• The FCA’s review of the execution-only market
• The FCA approved persons regime shake-up
• The regulator clamping down on financial crime.

Each month, the Wizard Learning CPD Update provides subscribers with 1.5 hours of structured CPD and a 10 question assessment to demonstrate firstly that the CPD activity has taken place and secondly that the information has been absorbed and understood.

For CPD system subscribers, the results of each monthly assessment are automatically recorded on their own personalised CPD Certificate; an official record of completed CPD activity and compliance with the FCA Training and Competence requirements.

Subscribers to the Wizard Learning CPD system are also given access to a range of online ‘test your knowledge packages’ for all diploma exams, online courses for the 5 diploma exams, our compliance course, other specialist and online courses – Wizard Learning is your ‘one-stop-shop’ to improve your learning techniques.

Focus area: How Pay As You Earn (PAYE) works
This is an area that has undergone several important changes. This 10 minute audiovisual presentation from our R03 Personal Taxation course takes you through how PAYE works

Focus area: Regulation
Following the implementation of the RDR reforms earlier this year and the significant impact these have had on the industry, many of our Diploma courses required substantial amendments during our annual updates this year. The main updates can be found in our recent news item; below we have highlighted one of the most significant changes that impact on advisers.

The materials for R01 Financial Services, Regulation and Ethics, underwent significant changes in chapter 5.1. This covers the structure and objectives of the new regulators - the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority – the scope of their powers and their approaches to supervision. The amended chapter 5.2 covers the new regulatory obligations of authorised firms and individuals.

We would recommend that these 2 chapters are studied as part of ongoing CPD to ensure full up-to-date knowledge and understanding of the industry in a post-RDR world.

Look out for the December newsletter – more news, views and useful information on important financial services issues and changes that affect you as an adviser.

Training modules
The costs and contents of all our training modules can be viewed here.

Wizard Learning Ltd

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