Mortgage advisers: start thinking about your education now

Code Working Group chairman Angus Dale-Jones told delegates at TMM's Mortgage Adviser conference last week, that the time is right for advisers to start thinking about their qualifications.

He said he understands there is a high personal impact on people in the financial advice industry because of the changes happening.

For many mortgage advisers, that includes concern about what the Code will require in the professional competency and qualifications space. 

Dale-Jones said the new Code might be at least a year away but it would pay for mortgage advisers to start getting proactive on the professional development front now.

He said the working group has not yet made any decisions when it comes to competencies.

“That’s because it is subject to the consultative process and we haven’t got to that level of detail with the Code yet. But we are trying to deal with the inevitable anxieties.

“So I would point to the current qualifications system and what it is meant to do. I would be surprised if there is no connection between that system and where we go in future.”

Many mortgage advisers will have done one or part of some of the existing qualifications, or something equivalent, and that is great, Dale-Jones said.

“But if you haven’t touched any of it, then now is the time to start looking at that and your continuing education.

“Generally, it would be timely to start thinking about whether there is some educational stuff out there that could be helpful to you.”

He said they are not trying to intimidate people by saying ‘that the world is going to change and you won’t be able to continue’.

“We are trying to give everyone an opportunity to go through a journey which is going to be beneficial to the whole industry and to clients of the industry.”

The working group’s timeline for development of the Code is tricky due to the change of government and the Christmas break.

But Dale-Jones said that, at the minimum, they wanted to have produced a draft Code by the end of August next year.

“That means we need to be fairly certain of what the Code looks like by early May next year and we will need to go public with the draft Code provisions a good month or so before that.”

He added they encourage mortgage advisers to actively engage with the consultative process as the insights and experience advisers can provide would be critical to the development of the Code.