New course embraces FAIS requirements

JOY ORLEK
THE IMPLEMENTATION of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS), effective today (October 1), has forced clearing and forwarding agents to take a fresh look at their training requirements.
In terms of the Act any company that offers or collects payment for freight insurance must register as a Financial Services Provider or obtain a mandate to offer insurance from an authorised FSP broker.
While several companies have chosen the latter option, there are many good reasons to become accredited yourself, says director of Insurance Compliance & Education (ICE), Michelle Roodt.
“If you’re independently licensed it allows you to make a decision at a later stage to switch brokers without having to renegotiate mandates.”
The company’s recently-developed practical training course in marine insurance is geared for the freight forwarding industry and earns participants 15 credits at NQF level 5, building towards a national certificate in risk management.
The course examines how to analyse exposure of international traders to transit risks and arrange and administer transit insurance.
With a background in education and marine insurance, Roodt is keen to expand the company’s marine portfolio and offer solutions in training that enable freight forwarders to meet the new minimum requirements.
INSETA is developing the retail national certificate and ICE will be involved in the scoping sessions for this certificate. Once the unit standards have been agreed, ICE will be able to offer a national certificate which will be relevant to the freight industry, says Roodt.
The specialist consultancy firm was set up earlier this year to handle the compliance and educational requirements of SMMEs in the financial and marine sectors.
“ICE has the requisite skills base to facilitate both course development and training,” said Roodt, who heads up the Ôwoman-empowered’ 5-person consultancy team.