Growing financial adviser group LEBC is launching a graduate programme which will lead to Chartered Financial Planner status in a bid to tackle a shortage of young recruits.

The company has unveiled a new Academy which will be run for both LEBC’s ‘Foundation’ business, which includes advising and servicing private and corporate clients and branch network, and its ‘The Retirement Adviser’ business, which includes Defined Benefits pension scheme work for corporations and large employers and their employees. 

Jeremy MacLeod, managing director of the Foundation business, said: “The financial adviser demographic is older than most other industries and there is a limited number of young people coming through the ranks.

“When you add the ‘advice gap’ concerns, it is clear there’s a major supply and demand issue when it comes to market demand and available skilled individuals. We are looking to tackle this issue by creating a professional training programme in the form of a dedicated Academy to attract young talent and train them accordingly.”

Key areas covered will be core technical knowledge, legislation and compliance framework, Financial Planning capabilities, pension, investment and protection market knowledge, as well as industry systems and practices. 

The pathway for each candidate will be: entry level client support, experienced client support, trainee Paraplanner, Paraplanne, trainee financial adviserand Chartered Financial Planner, with relevant exams being taken at each stage. Depending on the candidate’s experience they will be able to join at one of the first three key stages.

After being given induction training to the structure and ethos of LEBC, candidates to the LEBC Academy will begin continuing professional development comprising both technical and practical on-the-job training.

LEBC expect candidates to go from a trainee Paraplanner to a trained Paraplanner or trainee adviser with 24 months. They will then be given the necessary support to achieve Chartered status including study groups and time for revision prior to exams. The Academy is based in two centres located in Hull and Reading. 

Nick Flynn, managing director of LEBC’s ‘The Retirement Adviser’ business, said: Our unique ‘hybrid’ model of traditional IFA and large volume pension transfer adviser means that we can offer a ‘ready made’ client bank to all our newly qualified advisers so they can be kept busy from day one.”