CFA Institute and local societies are committed to advancing the investment profession and the professional development of our members.
Continuing professional development and lifelong learning are increasingly important to maintaining the distinction of and demand for the CFA® charter and the credibility of charterholders with investors and employers. The Board of Governors of CFA Institute recognizes this and has, therefore, approved our intent to develop a greatly improved CPD offering as a requirement and benefit of membership and the initial steps we are taking to understand what members need to make that meaningful and relevant to them in their careers.
As outlined in the Societies 2.0 CPD workstream, lifelong professional learning represents an excellent opportunity for CFA Institute and local societies to help members accelerate their careers, raise professional standards, and ultimately serve their clients better. To help get the project underway, CFA Institute and CFA Society United Kingdom are collaborating on a pilot for a learning platform so that we can jointly learn what would be required to deliver competency-based content to our members. Further updates on this pilot and the work of the CPD Design Council will be featured in Connexions in the coming months.
Should you receive any questions from your members, we have provided some talking points* to support you. We look forward to beginning this exciting discovery phase together.
*Talking points for use with members and other stakeholders
- The board of CFA Institute has approved the strategy of pursuing continuing professional development (CPD) as a requirement and benefit of membership and telling society boards, leaders, and members about our intentions.
- It is essential for a professional body to provide a program of continuing professional learning to help its members remain abreast of industry developments.
- CFA Institute has an obligation to support its members’ professional and personal growth by providing the means for them to stay up to date with the latest in theory and practice.
- An important part of professional development is being able to evidence one’s compliance to clients. Our plan is to make it easy for charterholders to demonstrate that they are current and expert in the latest thinking, innovations, and practice.
- 70% of our members already attest to continuing education now. We will develop a product that will make it easier to do so, with more relevant content and training materials, and will offer the ability to verify one’s compliance.
- There is a lot of work to be done in the next two years to develop the product and the technology for delivering it.
- We are not making any decisions now and won’t be for two years. We are in a period of discovery and consultation, but our strategic direction is clear.
- Our product roadmap includes member research, improvements to the current education experience, and building a role-based competency framework, which will inform the development of dynamic and relevant content for our members.
- Creating an excellent member experience is front and centre in our efforts.
- As an organization committed to professionalism, we believe lifelong learning is essential in the journey from credential to profession.
- The CFA charter must remain distinctive and in demand in the global marketplace of investment education by providing a uniquely rigorous, globally relevant body of investment knowledge, which continues and is available throughout our members’ careers.
- The Credentialing Practice Analysis team has developed and validated the first cut of a competency framework to better define which competencies are required to excel in three core job-role families: (1) fundamental analyst, (2) discretionary portfolio manager, and (3) private wealth manager.
- An increasing number of regulators require continuing professional education. Our members are looking to us for solutions. Recent developments under MiFID II (Europe) and IRROC (Canada) and current consultations by NASAA (North America) and FASEA (Australia) on continuing education requirements for investment advisers underline the urgency of this issue.
© 2019 CFA Institute. All rights reserved.
To download assets, please view the site on a desktop device