Be RDR Ready: Some last minute exam and gap-fill tips

Yet to complete your Level 4 or gap-fill requirements? There's still time, finds Charlotte Richards...

There may be 49 weeks left until RDR implementation, but the Institute of Financial Services (IFS) warned in December that the ‘real’ deadline was imminent.

Anne Kiem, chief executive of the IFS, said the reality for most financial advisers who wanted to continue working in the post-RDR era was that they must have begun the necessary steps by 3 January 2012.

Now that 'deadline' has passed, what does the IFS say now?

Well, it says it is still able to help advisers who have missed this deadline. The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) agrees.

Here, advisers give their tips to those who have yet to finish the necessary gap-fill requirements and exams.

Study hard

Ivor Skinner, financial planner at McGregors Wealth Management, says: “Study hard, but study smart.”

He says you do not need to know the study material from cover to cover. “It is about picking out the relevant information which you will be examined on,” he explains.

Lee Clarke, financial planner at Portland Wealth Management, says advisers will not need to "wade through" course material.

"Going through the reference book cover-to-cover is not what even the CII recommends. Reference books aren't novels," he says.

Clarke attributes his first-time pass success to repeated use of Revisionmate, the CII’s study tool that is available free of charge with the study book. Others recommend Wizard Learning, an online training system to aid assessment practice.

Gap-fill tools

For advisers who still need to fill gaps, Duncan Carter, financial planner at Clearwater Financial Planning, says the CII’s gap-fill tool is very good: “Attendance at the CII courses and workshops get pulled through automatically.”

He says CII regional meetings incorporate gap-fill sessions which proved useful to complete the necessary requirements and in turn obtain his first Statement of Professional Standing (SPS).

Elsewhere, Clarke says videos on the gap-fill website are helpful. He says they enabled him to memorise material not used in an average working day.