(SINGAPORE) The booming economy and growing number of high net-worth individuals with complex financial needs presents challenges on training and educating financial professionals here.

Training providers have to be quick to identify and close the gaps, says the Singapore College of Insurance (SCI). And one of these gaps is a need to train financial professionals on integrated products and services that cater to the needs of sophisticated consumers.

'The trend of integration of financial markets, which include insurance, capital markets and investment, is leading to the integration of financial products and financial regulation,' SCI executive director Karine Kam told BT in a recent interview.

'With the pace of change on the financial landscape both in Singapore and internationally, there will always be gaps that one can try to close.'

To reflect this, SCI has moved from a purely insurance training college to providing wealth management training, given the surging demand for professional wealth management services. Its Chartered Financial Consultant Programme allows participants to explore financial planning, estate planning, and retirement planning concepts, including planning for business owners, professionals and wealthy clients.

With more talent being drawn to the booming financial sector, SCI has seen steady enrolment numbers in the region of 4,000 for the past three years. It tries to devise faster and better ways to get its training products to the market, by conducting focus group discussions and ongoing evaluations with trainees.

Ms Kam said the quality of financial training in Singapore has also drawn many foreign students to take up courses here. To bring training closer to these people, SCI has been helping its counterparts in Indonesia and Sri Lanka with their training programmes.

In Indonesia, SCI has put in place an examination certification programme on investment-linked insurance products, helping Asosiasi Asuransi Jiwa Indonesia run examinations in 110 cities every month since 2005. And in Sri Lanka, SCI recently signed a memorandum of understanding in March with the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka to support the latter's new Financial Services Academy.

'We will replicate those programmes that are relevant to these markets and help them to put in place training programmes that they find relevant to their market,' Ms Kam said.

But SCI will still focus on Singapore, where it seeks to fulfil its appointment as a lead provider of Financial Industry Competency Standards (FICS), accredited training and assessment programmes for the general insurance, life insurance and wealth management (retail and mass affluent) industry segments.

As a lead provider, SCI will develop and deliver a suite of 30 FICS-accredited training and assessment programmes that will be rolled out in the next 24 months. The four other lead providers are Financial Training Institute @ SMU, International Compliance Association, Risk Management Institute NUS and the Wealth Management Institute.

'In Singapore, there are a few training needs that we need to plug,' Ms Kam said. FICS accreditation, which is already used in mature markets like the UK, allows participants' competencies to be more thoroughly assessed. This, she said, is another step forward in identifying training needs for financial professionals.