Financial advisers get certified

Director of the Mutual Fund Association of TT (MFATT) and vice-president of Marketing and International Business at the Unit Trust Corporation (UTC), Gayle Daniel-Worrell said the programme is also intended to shore-up investor confidence.

“We think investor confidence has been shaken a bit by some of the things that have happened in the industry. Clico in TT, Bernie Madoff in the United States, Allan Stanford in Antigua. So confidence has been shaken in the overall financial services industry and we see this programme, expanded Cert FA certification, as one of the steps to re-building investor confidence,” she said.

Daniel-Worrell was speaking at the launch of the expanded certificate for financial advisers (Cert FA) programme at Hilton Trinidad, Port-of-Spain.

The original Cert FA was first issued in 2005 by IBF and focussed on banking and banking products. The TT market has grown to include mutual funds, stocks, shares, bonds and other financial investment products but financial advisers were still being certified in banking products only.

Daniel-Worrell said this was why MFATT decided to take the lead in creating a new certificate that would offer specialisations in banking, mutual funds and securities.

MFATT did so over a three-year period, starting in April 2008, in partnership with IBF and the Security Dealers Association (SDATT). The expanded programme will be administered by IBF.

“New products come into the market all the time and investors may not be aware of these new products or they may not understand them, so the persons who are selling these products need to have certification, we believe, to be able to sell the products. This is true for any other country. In the US, Canada, England et cetera, you cannot just go and sell financial products, you have to be certified,” Daniel-Worrell said.

The expanded Cert FA is the first of its kind to be accredited by the Accreditation Council of TT. Registration for the new Cert FA begins in May and the first of three exams will be held in August. Part-one covers general information about the financial services sector, common knowledge of banking, mutual funds and securities. In part two, financial advisors start to specialise in their particular field. This is followed by a case study in part-three on the person’s specialty. Daniel-Worrell expects by 2014 or 2015, the expanded Cert FA would become mandatory for all financial advisers in TT.