That is the view of Institute of Financial Advisers (IFA) chief executive Peter Lee.

McMillan argued adviser body claims to be able to issue structured credits were "dubious" unless the credit was related to NZQA content.

Lee agreed that a degree of higher standards around structured credits would be welcome, but denied that meant a return to the national framework.

"If you take the argument to its ultimate conclusion and say everything's got to be NZQA you'd wind up with any presenter at any conference having to go through wrote exercise, tick the box, have a really structured thing, you just wouldn't have conferences then," he said.

He said that while "there was always going to be differences about these sort of things" he was confident in the IFA approach, saying it has had its own guidelines on structured credits for years.

Professional Advisers Association (PAA) chief Edward Richards said that for most advisers, issues around structured credits were not a concern.

"For a start RFAs don't need structured credits. It's not mandatory. Of course it will probably change in the future, but let's not get too excited."

Edwards did agree with McMillan that structured credits "probably should be issued by an NZQA-attributed entity," and said the PAA was looking at several proposals in that area from accredited providers.

"I think going forward, just speaking generally, Dave is right, but I don't think that anybody should be pointing the finger at anybody, be it professional adviser associations, adviser groups or financial providers, until we've all had a chance to bed down the CPD system," he said.

"I don't think the industry can claim to have got it all sorted yet. Everybody has to add more rigour in that area, and I see it happening."