Fitch Learning has completed its acquisition of the Canadian Securities Institute (CSI), and the global financial education provider says it will continue the CSI brand, including the CSI’s designations and certificates, and will also build on the CSI’s offerings.
“We recognize the value of the CSI and its long history in the industry,” said Andreas Karaiskos, CEO of London, U.K.–based Fitch Learning, in an interview. “That’s why we plan to keep the brand. We … see ourselves as the next custodian of this great organization.”
Further, “we will continue to invest” in the business, Karaiskos said.
The CSI was created in 1970 by the Investment Dealers Association (IDA). The IDA was a predecessor of the former Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, which in turn was a predecessor of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO).
In continuing to offer the CSI’s designations and certificates, there is opportunity to “see if we can invest to make the learner experience more dynamic” using technology, Karaiskos said.
In August, Fitch Learning announced its acquisition of Moody’s education businesses — the CSI and Moody’s Analytics Learning Solutions (MALS), a global provider of credit training. The acquisition was completed on Friday (transaction terms weren’t disclosed). The MALS brand will be retired and its offerings incorporated into Fitch Learning’s portfolio. With the two businesses, Fitch Learning has Canadian offices in Toronto and Montreal.
In a release, Fitch Learning said that, with the acquisitions, it serves more than 92,000 finance professionals across 148 countries.
“We’re incredibly excited; there’s a real positive buzz,” Karaiskos said. “It feels like a new Fitch Learning.”
The CSI will benefit from products that Fitch Learning deploys in other jurisdictions, including for continuing education (CE). “We know the CSI supports thousands of individuals on continuing education,” Karaiskos said. “By bringing in some of the Fitch Learning assets … into the existing [CSI] suite, we’ll be able to have a much bigger impact on raising the bar” in CE.
In 2024, CIRO announced a partnership with Fitch Learning to support the regulator’s new exam-based proficiency for investment dealer personnel, with Fitch providing syllabus development, exam delivery and educational portals. The new regime, which requires no prerequisite courses, and the partnership had signalled the end of the CSI’s long-standing position as the sole provider of proficiency education for investment dealer reps. But when Fitch Learning subsequently announced it was acquiring the CSI, questions arose about what the acquisition meant for an open market in financial education.
When asked if the CSI would provide exam prep or curriculum for the new regime, which launches in the new year, Karaiskos was explicit: “We will not be providing prep for the new proficiency exams.” He noted that CIRO has been clear about the separation of exam design and preparatory courses — a model that’s common across the globe, he said.
“We see our partnership with CIRO very much in helping them author [and] curate the exams, and administer them through the technology,” Karaiskos said.
The CSI’s contract with CIRO is set to expire at the end of 2025. The CSI will continue to provide mutual fund proficiency, which isn’t part of CIRO’s new regime but is largely expected to be rolled into it.
Karaiskos said Fitch Learning will keep abreast of how proficiency evolves. “There are clearly some big changes that have been announced and are underway,” he said, and there is “likely to be more…. Our objective is to try to support our clients as best as we can.”
A potential growth area for the CSI’s educational offerings is in private assets, as global market demand for private assets grows. “How do we make sure that investors and institutions are protected, from a knowledge perspective, at positioning the right asset classes for investors,” Karaiskos said. More generally, “advisors and the institutions they work for need to have continuing development on what’s being launched and the risks and the payoffs of those products.”
A related potential area of educational focus is understanding insurers’ portfolios, given that insurers are increasingly investing in alternative assets. That trend requires “more awareness in terms of asset classes and the risks and the risk profile of those assets within the insurance portfolio,” he said.
He also highlighted the need for behavioural skills training for advisors, who are increasingly using AI tools in their work with clients. “We don’t feel that AI is there to replace advisors, but we do feel that the skills investment advisors have to have should be shifting,” he said.
Supporting emerging trends in learning
The fast pace of change — in asset classes, tech and other financial industry developments — is an overall trend that Fitch Learning aims to support, Karaiskos said. Across sectors and regions, “the organizations that have [a] higher learning velocity will gain real competitive advantage,” he said.
Faster learning requires effective content use. Karaiskos described the ability to dissect large libraries of content to quickly identify useful knowledge. “Organizations that build the platforms … that can do that — can really almost exploit the IQ in the organization through search — will also increase the learning velocity,” he said.
Karaiskos also noted a trend within reskilling: some organizations are using peer-to-peer learning to develop skills across their members. As a result, “adoption is quicker than trying to put the masses through the funnel in one go,” he said.
For example, a wealth management firm might test an AI portfolio tool with a certain segment of clients and advisors, rolling the tool out widely once best practices have been established.
“That’s a trend which we follow closely,” Karaiskos said, to support organizations as they amplify their skills base.