The Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) has decided to discontinue delivery of the National Certificate in Financial Services Level 4 programme and the National Certificate in Financial Services (Financial Advice) Level 5 programme.

The qualifications are the minimum standard for authorised financial advisers.

A spokesperson said: “The New Zealand insurance market has proven to have little appetite for these NZQA qualifications, a fact that is reflected by less than 20 enrolments generated in these two programmes across the industry over the last two years.”

The programmes were suspended effective March 29.

“We will continue to monitor industry appetite for these programs, and if it transpires that in the future there is sufficient market interest we will reconsider our position," the spokesperson said.

But Gene Bekker, principal of the Insurance Brokers of New Zealand college said that left advisers who had done the qualification through the institute unsure of what their qualifications were worth. “They are not recognised by the NZQA as they are not NZ qualifications and don’t appear on the NZ qualifications framework.”

She said it seemed that advisers who had ANZIIF qualifications would need to provide proof their competence through an assessment of “current competence”.

But that could be an expensive process. “At the moment the credits are not transferable as to transfer or report the credits the provider needs to be registered with the NZQA. We are looking to The Skills Organisation to help us with a solution as they previously approved and gave ANZIIF permission to cross credit their certificate and diploma programmes to two (out of the fove) standard sets within the Level 5 programme."

About 500 members of IBANZ may be affected. Bekker said: “As you can imagine, for those who have just completed their Certificates or Diplomas with ANZIIF and spent between $3000 and $5000 on qualifications, this is not a happy time.”