Why is the Financial Adviser Professional Year so important?
Source Of News
By Joel Ronch, 15th February 2022
A recent article, the importance of the Professional Year was explained well when it stated, “The professional year (PY) is the bridge that every new entrant to the profession must now pass in order to participate in this new environment. It acts as a finishing school to prepare budding financial planners for the real world of work. It is a qualification of its own, marking the transition from a technically skilled but inexperienced graduate to a qualified professional… It is an opportunity for the new graduates and career changers to become well-rounded financial planners skilled at delivering quality, compliant financial advice.”
Equally, supervisors play an integral part in the Professional Year (PY). This means we need to ensure “… there are significant numbers of planners with the ability and willingness to mentor new graduates is an important step as PY training will be the bedrock of sound financial advice for years to come.”
Fourth Line helps licensees by offering real time oversight of the personal advice provided to clients, by providing independent, transparent, and consistent analysis of key documentation such as SOA, Fact Finds, Risk Profiles, and File Notes.
Licensees use the insights to collaborate with their Advisers. The Fourth Line reports become an important coaching tool designed to help improve the quality of the advice.
This was beautifully explained recently when a Compliance Officer, using the Fourth Line platform, said, “Before Fourth Line, being a compliance officer was stressful. It was very adversarial and, in some cases, physically confronting. Fourth Line brings an element of independence, transparency, and objectivity to the audit process that helps shift the conversation from combative in nature to one of coaching and collaboration. It’s certainly taken the stress out of my role, and life, & I’m once again enjoying the role of helping advisers improve the quality of their advice for the benefit of their clients.”
This is core to the Professional Year program – that is, helping new entrants learn, grow and improve through the provision of personal advice, all within a supportive environment.
Progressive licensees are using technology as part of the Professional Year to help supervisors maintain real time oversight of the advice created by the Provisional Relevant Provider (PY Adviser). Fourth Line’s Client File Review reports can be used to create targeted training which can contribute to the 100 hours of structured training required under the PY framework.
Llicensees and supervisors are also using technology to evaluate a new entrant’s ability to “identify and handle ethical issues (dilemmas)”, which is a key requirement of the last two quarters of the PY.
As a capstone to the PY, licensees and supervisors can use Fourth Line to conduct an audit of 5 client files, which is a mandatory requirement to ensure a consistent approach in assessing that the Provisional Relevant Provider has completed the required level of competence to qualify as having completed the Professional Year Program.
Fourth Line can assist supervisors, licensees, and new entrants with meeting requirements of the Professional Year. In summary, Fourth Line can help provide real time oversight of the Provisional Adviser’s advice, assist with targeted structure training, provide at least 4 “ethical dilemma” for the Provisional Adviser to resolve, and sign off on 5 client file audits to formally complete the PY.
Whether it’s helping existing advisers or those completing their PY, our vision is to help improve the quality of financial advice one SOA/ROA at time, so everyone wins – licensees win because advice is more compliant; advisers win as their advice is improving: and clients win because they receive advice that is appropriate and in their best interests.
Fourth Line is a rigorous RegTech risk management and compliance system for advice practices, dealer groups and other wealth management participants. Fourth Line uses algorithmic approaches to simplify the complexity in advice reviews whilst maintaining human oversight, empowering compliance teams to coach and develop strong advice behaviors through data driven insights from advanced analytics for adviser, practice/dealer group and industry benchmark comparison with centralised document storage and access to meet regulatory needs.
For information email: info@fourth-line.com.au
