Canadian Securities Course repositions for post-licensing proficiency

The Canadian Securities Course (CSC), an industry staple for more than six decades, is getting a tech-infused makeover with the help of global financial education provider Fitch Learning — the new owner of the Canadian Securities Institute (CSI). With the reboot, the CSC pivots from providing proficiency for securities licensing to building on it.

The CSC will continue to “play a big role but a different role” in the industry, “helping people be even more role-ready,” said Andreas Karaiskos, CEO of London, U.K.–based Fitch Learning.

He described the CSC’s forthcoming changes as a “repositioning,” and he projected that the updated course would launch by year’s end. The decision to reposition the course was made through consultation with the industry and observation of the global market, he said.

Repositioning the CSC is necessary, given that the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization’s (CIRO) new exam-based proficiency for investment dealer personnel no longer requires the CSC — or any course — as a prerequisite for licensing. And Fitch Learning is well positioned to update the CSC for a new era.

Forget the textbook-based course with which generations of financial advisors are familiar. The updated CSC “will be more of a simulation-type of learning experience, using some of the technology that Fitch Learning will bring into the Canadian Securities Institute,” Karaiskos said. Fitch Learning has been introducing AI into its educational offerings since the middle of last year, he said.

While the CSC will continue to cover traditional technical topics, a second component will be added to “prepare advisors to drive through situations where the markets are changing quickly,” Karaiskos said. As an example, he cited private market trends.

The CSC’s new second component will also cover “the human behavioural skills of being an advisor in 2026 and beyond,” he said, which is especially important as advisors increasingly use AI to serve clients. Developing and assessing advisors’ behaviour-related capabilities is “a really big opportunity” in education, he said. Role-playing is one way to do that, with AI agents acting as clients.

CIRO’s exam-based proficiency launched Jan. 2, and the regulator partnered with Fitch Learning for exam design and delivery. The new regime ended the CSI’s longtime agreement with regulators as the provider of proficiency for investment dealer reps. Last summer as CIRO and Fitch Learning worked toward the launch, Fitch Learning said it was acquiring then-Moody’s-owned CSI, raising questions about competition in financial education as well as the separation of exam design from exam preparatory courses, which is a best practice. As the CSI deal closed last December, Karaiskos had said Fitch Learning wouldn’t provide prep courses for the CIRO proficiency exams, given its role designing and delivering them.

Karaiskos said the traditional component of the updated CSC will have a “broad” body of content that covers topics outside of proficiency assessments, and will prepare individuals for the CSC’s second component. An exemption from the traditional component will be available — for registrants who passed CIRO’s proficiency exams, for example — and “content provided to close any gaps,” he said.

He also suggested that individuals seeking mutual fund licensing, for example, could take the traditional component.

The CSI remains the sole provider of mutual fund proficiency, which isn’t part of CIRO’s proficiency regime but is largely expected to be rolled into it. Last year, mutual fund dealers that had relied on the IFSE Institute for mutual fund proficiency faced the higher cost of the CSI’s Investment Funds in Canada (IFC) course when the IFSE Institute closed.

In turn, the IFC is significantly more affordable than the CSC.

Pricing of the updated CSC has yet to be determined, Karaiskos said, and the IFC will continue to be offered. “The CSC will also continue to cover a broader body of knowledge and will remain part of the educational pathway for other CSI designations, such as the Chartered Investment Manager,” he said.

Fitch Learning built CIRO’s mandatory conduct training, and the CSI is a provider of dealer-member post-approval training. The CSI will also build on its continuing education (CE) offerings, leveraging Fitch Learning’s larger business. “Continuing education can be hyper-personalized,” Karaiskos said. “I’m really focused on how can we help the industry maximize its [return on investment]” in CE.

He also noted that there’s strong demand for accreditations and proficiency in the Canadian financial services sector beyond licensing. “The Canadian Securities Institute will be more industry-led than regulatory-led, now that it is not the provider of the proficiency prep training,” Karaiskos said. “It is a tectonic shift, now, to where the CSI is going to be playing.”