Former Australian Securities and Investments Commission director Pauline Vamos has attacked financial services training in Australia for having skill gaps and “dumbing-down” the industry.

Speaking at last week’s FSEAA Industry Insights conference, Ms Vamos said the financial services industry is afraid of doing something wrong because people are not sure what the requirements are.

“As a result, the industry has dumbed down,” she said.

Ms Vamos says there’s a substantial number of training courses in Australia but none of them adequately teach students.

“There are great courses on superannuation, financial services reform (FSR), insurance, etc, but there’s not something that ties them all together,” she said. “Courses such as ‘What is the FSR?’ or ‘What is financial planning?’ are lost on them because they don’t understand how it is applied to them.”

Ms Vamos says the focus has been on training people so they know the law rather than how to apply it.

“I think there is a fundamental flaw in the way training is done. The skill of analysing is lost.”