AMP's Horizons Academy has formed a partnership with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) which will allow Horizons graduates to gain credits towards undergraduate and postgraduate courses of study in financial planning.
The UNSW courses also link the Financial Planning Association's (FPA's) Certified Financial Planner program, allowing graduates to obtain exemptions to some CFP units.
UNSW accepted its first intake of financial planning students this year, becoming the 18th Australian university to offer a dedicated FPA-approved course of study in financial planning.
Professor Alec Cameron, Dean of UNSW's Australian School of Business, said the university was keen to engage with "significant industry players" such as AMP.
"We see [financial planning] as a space with a growing demand for increasing quality in education and development of financial planners," he said.
The portfolio UNSW put in place has received support from the FPA and a number of other external organisations and individuals, he added.
Professor Chris Adam, Associate Dean, Postgraduate Programs, Australian School of Business at UNSW, said the university initially began looking at adding financial planning when the Financial Planning Association began indicating it was looking to raise the bar in terms of education standards in 2010.
Depending on what study they have completed, Horizons graduates can be granted some exemptions from UNSW's graduate certificate, graduate diploma, and masters of financial planning courses, according to Adam.
Horizons director Tim Steele said the initiative gives Horizons alumni the opportunity to get some credit or recognition for the experience they have gained through Horizons and completing their professional year.
The initiative was partly driven by feedback from Horizons students, who wanted some formal recognition of the experience they had gained through the program, Steele said.
He said that when the initiative was announced to Horizons alumni last week, 11 indicated this UNSW opportunity was definitely something they wanted to pursue and others said they were considering it.
