TAL is Australia’s leading life insurance specialist, providing Life, Total and Permanent Disability (TPD), Critical Illness and Income Protection (IP) insurance solutions to 5 million customers and offering protection for over 150 years. TAL’s life insurance is offered to customers through all available channels, including group insurance; financial advisers; directly from TAL over the telephone or online; and through an existing relationship with one of their alliance partners (including health and general insurers).

In 2019, the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) introduced new mandatory educational training requirements as part of their work to govern the conduct of professionals in the financial advice sector. These changes meant that new industry entrants are now required to undertake a Professional Year before being qualified as a Financial Adviser to provide personal financial advice to retail clients regarding retail financial products.

To ease the pressure of these new requirements for candidates, supervisors and licensees, TAL launched PY Manager in 2022 to provide a digital solution that streamlines the process.

PY Manager is a platform that allows candidates, supervisors, and licensees oversight of all aspects of the Professional Year in a live and digital capacity. Through an online hub with user-friendly dashboards, candidates can track their working hours and activity progress, log requirements and create learning plans with industry-aligned courses. Supervisors can also quickly access a full overview of hours and activity, sort those by type or regulation area, and utilise a ‘quick sign-off’ function for candidates. Meanwhile, licensees are provided with a complete overview of candidates and supervisors, with easy-to-use requirements tracking. All of PY Manager’s features replace the need for extensive manual record keeping and eliminate the need for multiple platforms and programs to create many folders and files that are cumbersome and difficult to manage.

TAL’s PY Manager was piloted in February 2022 before being launched into the profession in November 2022. The platform delivers a positive user experience, addressing the pain points of candidates, supervisors and licensees as discovered in the early planning phases of the platform. The product provides a comprehensive, user-friendly platform that meets the needs of Professional Year candidates and supervisors. It makes it easy for them to manage all requirements effectively and efficiently. Overall, the platform delivers a seamless user experience that saves time, money, and stress, helping increase the number of new entrants and more new entrants complete their professional year.

For information about TAL, visit tal.com.au