Separate Liquid-Alt bridge course is the best way forward, emphasize providers
But according to Marshall Baer, senior director of credentialing and licensing strategy at CSI, things are not so simple.
“Along with IFSE, we worked with CSA and MFDA to create a common bridge course curriculum for liquid options. Since CSI already had an alternative strategy course offered for the IIROC channel, it was important for us to It was relatively easy to do,” Bayer says. “During those conversations, there was some discussion about including those materials in the mutual fund licensing curriculum but in the end it was not pursued.”
The problem, he explains, is that half of the people who get mutual fund licenses work in a retail bank setting.
“Liquid alts are sophisticated products, and most of the retail banks recommend in-house mutual funds,” says Baer. “It doesn’t make sense for us to add 60 pages of liquid-alt content to a 350-page course when it won’t be relevant to half the audience. Right now, our mutual fund licensing course is worth about six or seven pages, which gives us Seems like that’s enough to introduce them to the subject.
Even among independent mutual fund dealers, he says the number of people currently working in liquid options is increasing but still low. Bayer says that pushing Liquid-Alt content to a basic licensing course would not align with the reality of the MFDA advisory’s practice and spark pushback from the industry.
