[GRTV] Fear of doing Level 5 wrong reason to bail from advice industry

It's pretty clear that financial advisers, particularly RFAs are going to have to complete Level Five papers to remain in the industry. Strategi is one of a number of organisations that offer these papers and its Executive Director, David Greenslade, says don't be afraid of continuing education.

Indeed he says; "We should never stop educating".

Greenslade understands that many RFAs are fearful of going back to school, but he says these days it is very different to the learning environment these people would have encountered when they were at school.

Adult learning and education can be done three ways: online, through distance learning or in a class-based environment.

More importantly it is not a memory based exercise. Level Five is "relatively easy" where people work through manuals and it is "open-book"

A number of commentators have forecast advisers are going to retire as they don't want to go through this upskilling process.

Greenslade says continuing education is the wrong reason to hang you your shingle.

He says advisers using this as their reason to leave the industry have neither the "motivation nor passion" to carry on.

"We should never stop educating".

SOFT SKILLS

Greenslade contends that advisers have been overly focussed on the more technical sides of advice. He says in the future there needs to be more emphasis on the "soft skills". Many advisers, he says, have these skills but don't use them as well as they should.

Technology and the emergence of robo advice is a potential threat to advisers, but Greensade says it's not something people should be afraid of.

"The human financial adviser can never be surpassed."

In this interview with Good Returns TV Greenslade talks about what good conduct means to advisers.  He says in the past "best practice" was the buzzword, but that has now been replaced with "good conduct".

Good Conduct is an evolving concept and advisers will need to keep up with the changes and interpretations.

His view is that it will be more focussed on "client-centric" outcomes.