The National Finance Industry Training Advisory Body (NFITAB) will enter new territory as it develops a scheme to collect data and rank every education program in the financial services industry.

The training body has also changed its name to the Financial Services Education Agency Australia (FSEAA). The name change took effect yesterday.

Recently the NFITAB was relaunched as self-funded after the Federal Government’s failed attempt to incorporate the organisation into one of its new national industry skills councils.

FSEAA Joint GM (and former NFITAB CEO) Catherine Chaffey says the name change and the benchmarking of all education courses in the financial services industry will help the agency to be accepted as the industry’s peak education body.

“This name change will see the transition to being more of an advocate for the industry as opposed to a moderator between the industry and government policy,” she said.

Joint GM Deen Sanders says there are 70 associations in the industry representing more than 600,000 employees, and the scheme will offer a greater choice of courses. “If the interest lies in the insurance industry, then we’ll be able to provide details of what course is best for a particular occupation and why it is better than others,” he said.

The FSEAA is responsible for maintaining the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) online education register, which has 668 courses offered through 153 providers.

Mr Sanders says the ASIC register does not differentiate between courses and the new scheme aims to offer more detailed information on the benefits of courses. 

“In the long term we’re looking at alternative models focused on compliance as opposed to the current register but this is under wraps at the moment and will be known at the end of the year,” he said.

Mr Sanders says the FSEAA will roll out new support tools and policies over the next two months.