Southern Business School is proud to announce that the Diploma in Management, majoring in Accounting has been included on the Fit and Proper Appropriate Qualifications List of the Financial Services Board (FSB).

The FSB is the regulating body of Financial Services and products in South Africa. Part of their responsibility is to monitor Financial Services Provider’s compliance with the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, 2002. One of the requirements of the Act is for authorised Financial Services Providers (FSPs) to meet specified Fit and Proper requirements as determined by the FSB. These requirements include:

• Honesty and integrity
• Competence
• Operational ability
• Financial soundness.

Thus, one of the duties of FSPs is to ensure that the persons rendering financial services and providing financial advice on their behalf are competent and comply with the criteria for competence as stipulated in the Fit and Proper determination.

One of these competence requirements will require persons employed by the licensed FSP to complete and obtain an “appropriate” qualification. An “appropriate” qualification refers to any certificate, diploma, skills programme or degree that will equip the person to render a financial service in a specific category or subcategory as defined in the FAIS Act, 2002.

In order to simplify the identification of which qualifications are deemed to be “appropriate”, a reference list of qualifications (Fit and Proper Appropriate Qualification List) will be developed by the FSB, and will be published in the Government Gazette towards the end of 2008. The financial services industry will use this list as a reference list when selecting the qualifications that they would want to obtain in order to become Fit and Proper.

It is recognised that the list would have to be updated on a continuous basis, and where required an updated list would be published on a quarterly basis.

In order to develop the Fit and Proper Appropriate Qualification List, the FSB in conjunction with the industry and educational experts, will review all qualifications that are relevant to the Financial Services Industry, and that can assist the Industry in meeting the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Fit and Proper requirements beyond 2009.

Therefore, the FSB invited Southern Business School to participate in this process. Southern Business School submitted the Diploma in Management, majoring in Accounting for consideration and inclusion on the Fit and Proper Appropriate Qualifications List. This was subsequently approved and is included in this list.