MFDA’s new CE regime to launch in the fall

The Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) will be launching its new continuing education (CE) system in December.

The self-regulatory organization received approval from the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) for its proposed rules to implement and monitor CE requirements for fund reps.

Under the new system, mutual fund reps and dealers’ supervisory personnel will have to accumulate a certain number of CE credits within each two-year cycle (starting Dec. 1).

In a notice to the industry, the MFDA said it will now begin the task of launching its system for reporting and tracking compliance with the new CE requirements, known as CERTS.

As CERTS is launched, the chief compliance officers at fund dealers will be notified about the process for adding their reps to the system, along with the employees who’ll be responsible for maintaining dealers’ CE records.

“We anticipate there will be in excess of 60,000 individuals subject to the CE requirements and it will take time to onboard all participants into CERTS,” the MFDA said in its notice.

In the meantime, the SRO plans to hold a series of webinars to help with the implementation of the new CE requirements.

Dealers will be able to accredit their own CE activities, or allow their reps to attend accredited third-party CE activities to fulfill their requirements.

To date, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and the Chambre de la sécurité financière (CSF) are the only recognized outside accreditors, but other organizations will be able to apply to the MFDA for accreditor status.

In October, the MFDA also plans to start “onboarding” organizations that want to offer CE activities to fund dealers.

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.