The U.K. Financial Conduct authority has developed a new reassessment test to help ensure advisors’ ongoing technical knowledge, the regulator announced Wednesday.
The FCA collaborated with the Chartered Insurance Institute to develop the new test, which launches Oct. 1.
The test will measure advisors’ knowledge of the course that became the new qualification standard under the FCA’s Retail Distribution Review (RDR) in 2013.
The aim of the test is to “raise the standards and competence” of advisors, the FCA says in a news release. “We believe that advisors having a good level of knowledge is the foundation to giving sound financial advice. This is particularly the case with the more technical aspects of financial advice,” it says.
Many firms don’t reassess their advisors technical knowledge, the FCA says. The new test is intended to enable firms to identify weaknesses in that knowledge.
“We will encourage firms to use it and we may also use it as a supervisory tool if we think it is appropriate to ask firms to retest specific advisors,” the FCA says.