ADVERTORIAL Applied
ADVERTORIAL Applied financial planning USB offers financial planners a pathway to a successful career – students across South Africa can now attend lectures from anywhere Mike Savva, Dr Lee-Ann Steenkamp and Dilshaad Samsodien The University of Stellenbosch Business School’s (USB) Post-Graduate Diploma in Financial Planning is a well-established and highly regarded programme with a long pedigree. Blue Chip spoke to USB’s Dr Lee-Ann Steenkamp as well as two recent graduates, Mike Savva and Dilshaad Samsodien, to find out more about the benefits this programme has to offer. Accredited by the Financial Planning Institute of Southern Africa (FPI), the programme is geared towards preparing students for the FPI’s professional competency exam, or Board Exam, so it follows the FPI’s syllabus. To date, some 700 graduates have gone through the programme since its inception in 2005. One successful alumnus is Hardi Swart, FPI Financial Planner of the Year for 2019. “The duration of the programme is one year, although students can opt to do it over two. The lectures are in the evenings after hours, because nearly all of our students are working individuals. Those that do it over two years might have family or work commitments, so we are a bit flexible in that regard. From next year, we will offer even greater flexibility by operating the programme on USB's successful blended learning platform. The evening lectures will be live-streamed so that students can attend from anywhere in the country – indeed from anywhere in the world!” says Steenkamp. “The course comprises four compulsory modules, each roughly three months in duration, so there are six weeks of lectures, every Tuesday and Thursday evening –quite a demanding time commitment. At the end of each module, students write assessments and continue with the next module. The final module concludes in the format of a case study that simulates the FPI’s Board Exam case studies,” Steenkamp explains. To facilitate the learning process, students receive a great deal of hands-on support. “Being a residential-based programme, we don’t operate in the distance- or online-learning sphere, which means that we have contact sessions: students come to campus and get a lot of face time with the lecturers. Just as importantly, they get ample opportunity for peer-to-peer collaboration learning, which we also facilitate by providing breakaway rooms for students to form 14 www.bluechipjournal.co.za
ADVERTORIAL study groups if they want to. We also have tutors that students can make use of,” says Steenkamp. In addition to the formal contact sessions, students can attend supplementary Saturday workshops to bridge any knowledge gaps they might have. “The programme modules cover various aspects of law and commerce, so if you find that your background is not as solid in financial calculations, for example, you can then attend a Saturday workshop just to bring you up to par with your classmates,” Steenkamp clarifies. The basic qualification to enter the course is a relevant bachelor degree such as an LLB or a BCom, but there is some flexibility in this regard. “Interestingly, we do get BA students every so often. We had a financial journalist who was admitted to the programme based on work experience, so even if you do not have a relevant bachelor degree, if your work experience is such that you are on par, you would also be allowed into the programme,” says Steenkamp. The content of the course is constantly being adapted to keep up with changes in the financial planning profession. “We have to adhere to the FPI syllabus to keep our accreditation, so whenever the FPI changes something we follow suit. When they changed the format of their case study exam, we changed our format. We are also in the process of an extensive curriculum renewal taking the latest fintech developments like robo advice into account.” Lecturers play a tremendously important role in keeping the programme up to date in terms of current industry practice. “Most of our lecturers are practitioners: some might be in the full-time employment of a financial services firm, others might have their own business, and then there are a couple of full-time academics like me. As a result we have a nice blend of academics and practitioners; everyone brings something important to the table,” says Steenkamp. “We don’t want students to learn things by rote, so we have a very strong focus on application, which all comes together nicely in the last module. It’s difficult to bring a whole year’s work together into one case study, so the lecturers also go through past exam papers from the FPI and help students to approach the questions in the right way. This focus on exam technique extends to real-life practice because then you know what questions to ask. It can be difficult to get information out of a client – they don’t know what they don’t know – so this programme helps you to know what to ask and how to ask it.” One distinct advantage of the programme is that graduates are eligible to apply for our prestigious MBA. “It is very important for USB to offer a learning pathway to our students,” says Steenkamp. Appreciative alumni Dilshaad Samsodien, who works as a legal advisor at Sanlam Life Insurance Limited, finished the 2018 programme at the top of her class. She comments: “For me, what sets the University of Stellenbosch aside from other institutions is the fact that it’s not a distance-learning programme: there are interactive bi-weekly classes presented by excellent lecturers and additional workshops to assist students in preparing for the examinations for the various modules, as well as additional workshops for those students who go on to write the FPI exams. That definitely assisted me a great deal. “When I joined Sanlam at the end of 2016, I was very new to the insurance industry and was keen on studying something that would give me a holistic view of the financial services industry. That is exactly what I got out of this course.” Samsodien affirms that the programme is directly applicable to professional practice: “Since doing the course I successfully passed my FPI exam in February, and I must say that I have been able to apply the knowledge that I’ve gained to different matters that come before me as a legal advisor at Sanlam and also in my personal life. “Integrating the course with my work-life was quite challenging. It took a considerable amount of time, effort, dedication and tears, but I put in the hours and it paid off in the end.” Fellow graduate Mike Savva offers his appreciation of the programme. “I come from a financial management background, which is a bit different to the financial planning side. I wanted to gain more knowledge, skills and experience in order to deal with clients better.” Savva acknowledges that the programme takes commitment: “You have to put time aside for it every day. When you’re not at lectures, you’re summarising or studying or making notes in order to make things easier for the exams and the case study at the end.” Savva agrees with Samsodien that the lecturers’ professionalism is a distinct asset. “It’s easy to learn and to keep up with the textbook, but also, since the lecturers are experienced people in the industry, the programme teaches us to how to deal with clients in the working world. “For the past five years of poor returns, clients have all asked why their investments have fallen. The programme taught us to deal with those situations and make clients realise that their investment is designed for the long term – short-term volatility is the norm. It’s one of the things that has actually come to good use in practice.” Savva continues: “The programme gave me the confidence to deal with any type of client, from a more established client to someone that is just starting. When you are starting out in the industry, you are anxious about seeing someone that’s going to ask you a lot of questions you might not know the answers to – especially when, like me, you like to know everything. The course really gave me the ability to be able to see anyone and respond to any questions they may have.” Of course, nobody can be expected to have an answer for everything. “The programme also teaches you how to deal with questions you can’t answer – either by telling the client that you will get back to them or referring them to someone that may be able to,” says Samsodien .• www.bluechipjournal.co.za 15
