Following a year-long review, Singapore's Institute of Banking and Finance is to overhaul its industry competency standards.

The Institute of Banking and Finance in Singapore has proposed revisions to the Financial Industry Competency Standards, following a year-long review.

In May 2012, deputy prime minister and minister for finance for the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, announced plans for IBF to undertake a fundamental review of the FICS Standards.  Working with PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBF consulted extensively with the industry and released enhancements to the FICS framework.

FICS, which was launched in 2005, is an independent quality assurance mark to measure the competency of the financial sector workforce and provides a practice-oriented approach to talent development.

“In a rapidly changing financial landscape, the FICS must remain the bellwether for the industry, and maintain the high standards of competency expected of every financial services practitioner.  It is no longer sufficient to just provide 'on-the-job' training – there is an urgent need to ensure that new entrants undergo structured training and acquire basic competencies before they are admitted into the industry,” said Lawrence Wong, acting minister for culture, community and youth, and senior minister of state, ministry of communications and information.

The enhancements to the FICS framework are: 

The FICS certification framework will be recalibrated from the previous six certification levels to four certification levels. New entrants with no prior financial sector experience will now be considered for certification at the foundation level, as long as they undergo FICS training and assessments.                                                     

As at end-2012, 350 training and assessment programmes have been accredited under the FICS framework and close to 12,000 practitioners have been trained across various disciplines. There are now more than 1,600 individuals certified under FICS. 

IBF will be working with the Financial Training Institute, International Compliance Training Academy, Swiss Asia Banking School, and Wealth Management Institute, helping training providers to introduce new foundation programmes for wealth management, corporate banking and compliance.

The new foundation programmes will be launched by the end of the year, in time for financial institutions to incorporate them into their 2014 training calendar. 

In addition, IBF will work with industry veterans to better translate their experiences into FICS case studies and training resources.  The FICS will be revised to allow senior experienced executives with more than 15 years of experience to be certified based on peer review of their industry contributions rather than formal assessments.