AMP courses drive planner numbers

AMP has boosted its Australian financial planner numbers by 6.5 per cent to 1,643 this year through its new planner training courses Planner Pathways and AMP Horizons.

The new planners have been placed in existing AMP practices in both regional and metropolitan areas across Australia, and in some case have also started new practices.

They represent the first graduates to have emerged from the AMP Financial Planning Academy, which was launched in St Leonards late last year.

Steve Helmich, director, AMP Financial Planning Advice and Services, said 32 new planners had been placed into the AMP NSW planner network in late January 2008 at the conclusion of the first AMP Horizons course.

Another group of 32 provisional financial planners had begun the second AMP Horizons course on February 11, he said, with the goal to have “introduced 120 new planners via the Academy by the end of this year”.

AMP is planning to “extend our programs from three states to five and we’re updating financial planning software, which will improve efficiencies by up to 30 per cent”, Helmich said.

About 750 applications have been received in total for the 64 positions offered in the first two AMP Horizons courses, he said.

The first intake of AMP Planner Pathways course commenced in late September with 32 students, and a further intake of 30 students will be joining the 18-month program in May 2008.