You might have imagined Training & Education is an inherently dull subject, and that no one would volunteer to experience more of it. Exams that are laughably easy have no perceived value; exams that require you to lock yourself in the study for 100 hours are unattractive. There might not even be a happy medium. So setting, writing and invigilating online qualifications can be a thankless task.
The topics have to be very carefully judged. Too specific, and individual brokers will say the exams are not appropriate for them; too vaguely-defined, and they will help nobody. This is partly why everyone’s used to taking qualifications in Anti Money Laundering, the three-word subject in which nobody really knows where you’re supposed to put the hyphen. (It’s not about laundering anti-money, is it?).
So the topics we’ve chosen, to start with, are as follows: Introduction to Consumer Credit, Complaints Handling, and then the three usual suspects, the topics we have always offered since about six years ago; Financial Crime (how to spot it, rather than how to get away with it), Data Protection, and Treating Customers Fairly.
Following these five, there will be a number of other titles which will relate more closely to the day-job of each member. It will mean that everyone can choose what to be an expert on, while sharing the same set of basic competences.
These are generally informal and represent more of an ongoing development than the type of qualification that gives you letters after your name, but it all helps demonstrate that our members have their fingers on the pulse. And alongside the exams, there are industry news pieces which can be read at the discretion of the broker, if the subjects catch their eye.
If you’re thinking “Great, just what the world needs; another online news sharing platform!” then we sympathise, but by putting this kind of content right in the CPD-counting area, we’re making it much easier for the broker to consider how his or her reading is in accord with the FCA’s advice. You have to consider which is easier; to remember today where you were on November 18th, or to claim for a development activity at the point of actually doing it.
Furthermore, what’s particularly helpful about our system is the way it doesn’t just tell you what you got wrong (or, even worse, just a straight “Pass/Fail” grade), but revisits each question where you missed the right answer and explains it with a “reason why” box. The course then recommends further reading on the area that it has identified as being one that you have found challenging.
The point is to make users feel engaged with the process, as if it was there to help them instead of aiming to find them wanting. It’s not a policeman with a radar gun hiding behind a tree.
And we have built all this in response to our members’ demands and the demands of new brokers who would like to be members because they want a learning platform.
