I’ve now passed my level 4 Diploma for Financial Advisers with the London Institute of Banking and Finance (LIBF). This means, amongst other things, I can add DipFA to my array of post-nominals that have long since ceased to be relevant in the modern world. Hurrah!

Disclaimer: my laptop however has spontaneously died, so this post has been written using the lacklustre power of my mobile and the WordPress app. If there are awful errors, I can only apologise. I will try to review the post when the laptop of back from repair and fix whatever evil I have unleashed upon this blog site.

What’s the deal with the Diploma for Financial Advisers?

One of the fun things about financial services in the UK is that they’re regulated. Quite strictly, in fact. The main regulator and the one that controls financial advice is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). They control who is authorised to give regulated financial advice in the UK, and one of their criteria is that advisors (I say advisor, LIBF say adviser – I don’t think it matters much) have to be qualified to at least Level 4.

Providing regulated financial services unless authorised or operating under an exemption is super illegal under section 19(1) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, and that includes advising on regulated investments. Yet you see an awful lot of “BUY MY FAVOURITE FUND!” on Reddit. That might take advantage of one of the exemptions like peer-to-peer discussions, but I haven’t recommended anything on this blog because then I think I’d be either breaching this law or the section 21 on financial promotions. I don’t like blogging enough to pay a fine or go to prison for a bit, so you won’t see any regulated products being recommended, just reviewed.

The Diploma is a level 4 qualification, so I have the option to career change (again) into financial advising. Nice!

Wait – so you can advise me? What should I buy?!

Not so fast! I also need to become an authorised person and become registered on the FCA register as an approved financial advisor. To do that, I have a whole heap of hurdles to jump through. Then, I need to be supervised until I obtain Competent Advisor Status, which in itself has a few flaming hoops.

Even then, this is a sorely tempting proposition! I’m bound to my company under a return-of-service contract until next summer, but it’s something I’d be foolish not to look into. Self employment becomes an option, which is something that came up in The Millionaire Next Door.

Why? Just… Why?

When I left public service, I had some learning credits that expire around 2024 and can’t be used in the same year. They’re pretty tasty and I didn’t want to waste them!

These credits needed to be used on a level 3 or better course.

Now, I could have used them for wine tasting, which was an awesome proposition and my original plan. However, pandemic hit and that got taken off the table. Instead, we got a lot of weekends with very little to do. Prime studying time!

The Diploma for Financial Advisers met the terms of my learning credit and I’d already gotten into personal finance and financial independence, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. In the end, I enjoyed it, so it was worth doing. Good use of trapped time.

What’s in the course?

The Diploma for Financial Advisers is a nine month course made up of two modules: Financial Services Regulation and Ethics (FSRE) and Advanced Financial Advice (AFA).

In reality, this means three chunky workbooks.

The course is self-taught. There was the option to pay more for coaching, but I didn’t use it, primarily because I wasn’t expecting that it might be a career opportunity. If I failed, who’d care? Who’d even notice?

There is also a forum, some mock exams, an online knowledge library and digital copies of everything.

Assessment

FSRE

FSRE is assessed by multiple choice. That sounds like a soft option, but it was the hardest assessment of the course. I may never mock a multiple choice exam again. The pass mark is 75% and due to COVID I completed this online.

FSRE is cool in that you can book the exam when you’re ready. I booked it in the first two months, as I wanted more time to study the more detailed AFA module. FSRE is one book, AFA is two – you get where I’m going.

AFA

AFA has two assessments and you can’t pick the timing. The first is a coursework assignment and the second is a three hour online exam.

I found the coursework difficult because the guidance was vague on what we were expected to produce. The task was to draft a general advice note for investing with a specific goal in mind, but the word limit was an absolute 1,500 words. I struggled to get options into such a short word count and that seemed to be the general vibe from looking at the forum.

The exam was remarkably straightforward. We were given a fact find, as if we’d interviewed a client and taken all of their details, a few weeks in advance. Then, under exam conditions, we had 3 hours to write a report advising the client, who had added in four or five additional things that they wanted advice on.

The exam seems daunting but it turned out that the workbooks were well structured to help you revise for the likely scenarios, which did indeed appear. Either I’m psychic or this is good course design.

Top tip: the workbooks don’t teach you how to write a report. You have to dig around on the module page to find a guide for how reports are generally structured. This is the downside of distance learning: what might be obvious to staff might be less obvious to students.

AFA has a pass mark of 50%.

Who is the Diploma for Financial Advisers aimed at?

The course felt very much like a course aimed at practicing trainees who were already in an advising firm. Elements such as the assessment design seemed to assume some knowledge of how a firm presents advice to clients and you aren’t hand-held through the modules.

How hard is it?

I was going to come up with some official-sounding subheading, but let’s be honest: you probably want to know how hard this is and if you can do it for yourself. No worries, I get you. Plus, this is a pretty casual blog.

I did this as an enthusiast who might look into practice in the future. The materials, although it aimed at me, could be interpreted and understood by someone with a strong personal finance interest. If you have read the books I’ve reviewed, you should be able to get to grips with most of it.

That being said, I thought that my legal education and training gave me an advantage. Knowing how equity finance works in principle is a good start, and if you’re confused about that you can check out my post on what a share actually is.

In fact, you might want to read all of my posts on the basics first.

Time commitment

I usually spent 4-8 hours a week on this. That could usually be achieved after dinner and before bed during the week, with a surge on weekends for assessment writing and revision.

I managed it with a high demand job, but if you have one of those plus kids you might need to talk with your partner about cutting you some slack time.

The course ran from early January to mid July. It’s more of a power walk than a marathon. You also control your time outside of the assessments.

Overall

I’m glad I did the Diploma for Financial Advisers with LIBF. If I don’t use the qualification, I’ve at least gained knowledge.

This fits in with my plan to invest in myself. See my 2021 campaign plan for details.

I’m also intrigued to learn that I have a new career opportunity that I didn’t have before. This requires more thought on my part and it may or may not feature in the 2022 campaign plan.

The course comes to £990 (or £1,090 with tutor support, which I didn’t have). You can see more details on the course registration website if you’re interested.