The Investment Management Consultants Association is rolling out a new online education program around behavioral finance.
IMCA designed the new online certificate program to help advisors identify and understand common decisions that investors make mistakes, the organization said during its national conference Monday. Duke University’s Dan Ariely, MIT’s Andrew Lo, and the Santa Clara Leavy School of Business’ Meir Statman and other academics and industry experts have agreed to provide content for the new course, IMCA said Monday.
Advisors participating in the program will earn up to 15–20 hours of continuing education credit through a series of online slides, videos, speaker notes and quizzes. The decision to add the program comes after a recent job task analyses for CIMA and CPWA certifications required IMCA to expand behavioral finance content in its certification programs. Additionally, 85 percent of IMCA members surveyed this year indicated they would be “very” or “somewhat” interested in advanced topics in behavioral finance.
“Today’s advisors must possess expert behavioral finance savvy to competently guide their clients’ investing decisions and build durable portfolios,” said Sean R. Walters, IMCA’s executive director and CEO. “IMCA has built a premier reputation for our live education offerings, but we feel that high-quality education can be delivered in a variety of media.”
