CPD for Financial Services Training Providers
If you're setting up CPD accreditation for financial services training and you're worried it won't count for the FCA's Training and Competence requirements, that worry is worth taking seriously rather than dismissing. The FCA doesn't accredit training providers directly, and an SPS holder's professional body, not Open CPD, decides what satisfies their annual renewal. What we can give you is a certificate built to document CPD hours and outcomes clearly enough that it holds up inside that framework, rather than getting filed away and forgotten.
What CPD accreditation actually means for a financial services training provider
The FCA requires regulated firms to operate a Training and Competence framework, and CF30 customer-facing roles need CPD evidence as part of their T&C records specifically. Financial advisers holding a Statement of Professional Standing must complete annual CPD to renew it, issued through FCA-recognised professional bodies, and the IDD sets a baseline of fifteen hours of CPD a year for anyone involved in insurance distribution. None of these frameworks are things Open CPD replaces or issues on the FCA's behalf, they're the reason your certificates need to be specific and verifiable rather than generic.
An aims-skills-outcomes structure serves that need directly. It states exactly what a course on mortgage advice, investment advice, AML, or financial crime covered and what a learner can now do, which is precisely the level of detail a compliance officer checking T&C or SPS evidence is looking for, not a logo, but a documented record.
Financial services CPD spans a wide range of formats, from a single compliance update session to an ongoing programme of AML training delivered across a firm. CPD hours flex to match: you set them per session against genuine contact time and learning activity, applying the same one-point-per-hour principle whether it's a short update or a longer course, so the hours a certificate states are accurate against the FCA's expectations.
Open CPD offers a simple 3 step process for you
Run your financial services, compliance, or AML training session as you already do.
Log in, set up the course profile, outcomes, hours, delivery mode, and accredit with one click.
Branded CPD certificates and digital badges are generated instantly for every learner.
What compliance teams actually check
Compliance teams at regulated firms handle large volumes of staff CPD records and don't have time to chase training providers to confirm a certificate is legitimate. A generic PDF with a logo creates exactly that friction, and friction gets a provider deprioritised in favour of one whose certificates integrate cleanly into compliance workflows.
A permanent, checkable verification link removes the friction. It confirms the issuing provider, the course details, the CPD hours, and the learner's name, independently, without anyone needing to contact you directly. For an adviser renewing an SPS or a firm evidencing T&C during an FCA audit, that's the difference between a certificate that gets accepted and one that gets queried.
Each certificate resolves to an achievement page anyone can open, no login, no PDF attachment.
Your logo and course name lead. Certificates are powered by Open CPD, issued by you.
Once issued, the record is stored immutably and stays tamper-proof, the date and detail cannot drift.
How this plays out for financial services providers
Financial services learners are not collecting CPD out of personal interest, they're building a paper trail their compliance teams and, ultimately, the FCA will scrutinise. That makes verifiability a commercial requirement, not a nice-to-have. Providers whose certificates hold up cleanly inside FCA T&C, SPS renewal, and IDD evidencing are the ones regulated firms keep coming back to for their compliance, AML, and advice-related training.
Open CPD does not replace FCA T&C or SPS renewal requirements, it documents the CPD behind them
Open CPD isn't a substitute for the FCA's Training and Competence framework, an SPS issued by a recognised professional body, or the IDD's own CPD baseline, those requirements stand exactly as they are, set by the regulator and the bodies that oversee them. What Open CPD provides is the documentation layer: a verifiable, hosted certificate stating the course, the hours, and the outcomes, that an adviser or compliance team can use as evidence inside those existing frameworks rather than a workaround to them.
Accredit your first financial services course this week
Ready to see exactly how the structure comes together, aims, skills, outcomes, and the verification record that ties it all together? [How It Works](https://open-cpd.com/how-it-works/) walks through the full mechanism. Or [start now](https://open-cpd.com/opencpddemo/) and set up your first financial services course profile in minutes.