The Financial Services Authority, the UK regulator, has agreed to publish the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment’s Certificate in Private Client Investment Advice and Management as the proposed appropriate examination for investment managers. The move effectively ends uncertainty over whether this qualification will satisfy the demands of the Retail Distribution Review.

Under the RDR package of reforms, from the end of 2012 advisors will have to hold a Level 4 qualification - equivalent to undergraduate standard - as part of the regulator’s drive to improve the quality and independence of investment advice available in the UK. Detractors have suggested that the prospect of further study and examinations will drive older advisors out of the industry, but the CISI has reported increasing take-up rates for its PCIAM, suggesting that the new higher level qualifications are gaining momentum.

The proposed addition of the PCIAM to the roster of appropriate examinations will be published in the FSA’s Quarterly Consultation Paper in October, and so could be written into the regulator’s policy documents as early as December.

The CISI said it has also submitted its new Level 4 qualification, the Investment Advice Diploma, to the FSA for approval against the investment management standards. If approval is granted, advisors opting for a Level 4 qualification over the PCIAM, which is Level 6, will be able to take one qualification which will satisfy the regulator’s requirements for both retail advice and discretionary management, the CISI said.