Meeting continuing professional development (CPD) obligations under The Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services – Standard 9 has now become a key focus for both financial advisers and financial advice providers (FAPs). Kaplan Professional believes its world-class Ontrack platform is fast becoming the continuing education solution of choice in New Zealand. Long established as the leading financial services CPD provider in Australia for over 30 years, Kaplan Professional recently partnered with Massey University to design a complete and purpose-built continuing education offering for New Zealand, which is quickly gaining traction. “In Australia, we have nearly 45,000 subscribers across over 2,500 corporate organisations on our Ontrack platform,” said Kaplan Professional CEO Brian Knight. “We had more than 400,000 completions of digital modules across our Financial Adviser and Mortgage Broking and Credit content libraries in 2022, which is an increase of almost 15 per cent on the previous year – we think this type of take-up will follow in New Zealand.” Kaplan Professional strongly believes its continuing education solution offers value for FAPs as the best offering in the market. The Ontrack platform encompasses high-quality, original multimedia content and robust assessments, as well as sophisticated monitoring and reporting capabilities, in addition to a cutting-edge and intuitive user experience. “Ontrack’s reporting and tracking tools provide FAPs with the technology to comprehensively create, record and track the professional development activities and learnings of their advisers, and automatically maintain precise logs of what CPD has been completed and when,” said Knight. “FAPs can set multiple learning plans based on an adviser’s 12-month professional development plan to pinpoint any desired competencies or knowledge gaps, while tracking each adviser’s progress at both an individual and group level. “We also have the capability to support FAPs to build a robust CPD policy as part of their annual business plan that safeguards the practices and strategies they have in place to ensure compliance with the Financial Markets Authority.” Kaplan Professional General Manager, Continuing Education Jennifer Hornsey said there was a significant demand from FAPs for original, practical and relevant CPD content. “We are of the strong opinion that our content stands out through the depth and quality of our interactive digital modules and wide variety of multimedia formats, which offers a more engaging learning experience than just reading static PDF articles. “New content is released two times per month to ensure there is always a range of current and timely content available for subscribers. “The feedback we have received from FAPs is they want more of our original and unbiased technical content, which helps keep their advisers up to date across many evolving and specialist areas of financial advice. “Our continued focus for 2023 is to produce insightful, topical and wide-ranging CPD content that interests advisers, improves their knowledge, and enhances professionalism across the board. “We are working with our in-house team of technical writers, instructional designers and multimedia experts in both New Zealand and Australia to leverage as many digital formats as possible to keep our content appealing and unique for FAPs and advisers … for example, more podcasts, videos and shorter micro-learning pieces. “We will be expanding on our range of specialist short courses in areas such as cybersecurity and anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism, while also exploring ways advisers can be recognised and rewarded for the CPD they complete through digital badges and micro-credentials,” she said. CEO Knight encouraged FAPs and advisers who had not yet experienced Ontrack to consider the benefits of the platform as a full-service and holistic continuing education solution. “We have made a significant investment in the millions to ensure this is a premium global solution, so we truly believe we are offering a world-class product at a reasonable price. “We are incredibly pleased with the traction Ontrack has gained in the market already and our client base is growing by the day,” he said.