The SMSF Academy is progressing with its online self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) course, which was created in response to the proposed changes to licensing in the sector.
“We’re really drilling down on education to practise,” SMSF Academy managing director Aaron Dunn told InvestorDaily.
“We’re finalising the content of our new online SMSF course, [which] has a full learning management capability behind it, so that people can complete a course online to be able to meet whatever the new competency will be in the SMSF space.”
Stemming from the Future of Financial Advice reforms, the government has yet to make an announcement on the abolition of the accountants’ exemption, which will clarify the scope of advice accountants can advise on.
The SMSF Academy expects several modules of its course to be completed and ready by August.
It aims to provide advisers and accountants, who face a conditional licensing framework, with the relevant training to practise in the SMSF market and the course can be completed in its entirety or by specific modules to fill in any training gaps.
“It will cover what we see as the relevant areas and we’ve benchmarked it against the Self-Managed Super Fund Professionals’ Association of Australia educational requirements,” Dunn said.
“We’ve also given consideration to what’s come out in consultation as well through the Stronger Super reforms side and so forth.”
Both accountants and advisers had shown interest in the course, however, it had been frustrating to build it without the legislative framework, he said.
“What’s enough and what’s not enough is where we’ve been getting some assistance in terms of what it should look like for the marketplace, so once we’ve got the framework, we then go into the production of it,” he said.
“We’re working through how we dissect the content that we put together to deal with the bare bones and what will be beyond meeting minimum requirements. To some extent, we’ve got a rough idea.”
The SMSF course will predominantly consist of online modules, but may also include webinar and intensive training days to get advisers up to speed.
