Approved IAR CE Courses

This course explores the growing risks of cybercrime and identity theft, equipping professionals with the knowledge to recognize threats and implement safeguards. Youll learn about common attack methods, vulnerable technologies, and best practices for protecting sensitive data in both personal and business contexts. The course also covers key laws, regulations, and insurance considerations to help you guide clients in mitigating risks. By the end, youll be prepared to identify vulnerabilities, respond to incidents, and strengthen cyber resilience.

This course prepares investment adviser representatives to protect client data
and firm systems. It establishes the threat landscape specific to advisory
practices, sets out the federal and state regulatory baseline governing data
security, and translates both into the controls and workflows a firm actually
operates — including the client verification procedures that stop fraudulent
disbursements and the incident response steps that follow a breach.

It is written for firms without dedicated security staff, where the adviser or
a principal carries the security and compliance responsibility personally,
while remaining applicable to advisers at firms of any size.

This course is designed to provide investment advisers with a comprehensive understanding of cybersecurity threats, best practices for safeguarding client data, and compliance requirements within the financial services industry. Through this course, participants will gain insights into the latest cybersecurity trends, regulatory expectations, and real-world scenarios to enhance their ability to protect sensitive information effectively.

"Over 9 billion data records have been lost or stolen since 2013! With a frequency of almost 5.5 million records exposed every day, it is no longer a question of whether a company has been compromised, but more a question of when it will happen. Beyond prevention and mitigation, firms must be able to develop a comprehensive cybersecurity program that addresses cybersecurity end-user training, detection, response, and recovery.

This course presents the topic of cybersecurity and what it means to the firm. Through an overview of what it is, certain steps that should be taken to spot it, and other educational elements such as how and why cybersecurity regulations impact nearly everything digital, we hope to make clear the absolute necessity of protecting not only client records but the firm’s platforms and infrastructure."

Large-scale data breaches and cyberattacks are frequently reported, often leading to misconceptions about their impact, especially for medium and small businesses. While digital business offers many benefits, it also brings evolving risks. This course covers common cyber risks and provides steps to protect your clients’ information and your business from cybercriminals and data breaches.

This course examines topics that investment adviser representatives should know regardingdebt securities issued by corporations, municipalities, GSEs, and the U.S. Treasury. Concepts and terminology are presented for a broad range of debt-related topics, with examples where appropriate. The course covers types of bonds available to investors, maturity structures, differentways of characterizing a bond's yield, the relationship between interest rates and bond pricesin the secondary market, accrued interest, and the money market. Sections delve into specific categories of debt securities, such as T-bills, STRIPS, TIPS, asset-backed securities,collateralized mortgage obligations, and municipal bonds.

There’s no question that retirement planning is a top financial objective for many consumers, notably “baby boomers” who are now—and will be for some time—crossing the retirement threshold. Among the many financial challenges facing retirees, one of the most significant is how to avoid running out of money. Supporting these retirees—and those who advise them—are many diverse retirement planning products, options, and strategies. Now, thanks to the IRS and to the insurance industry, advisors have two additional tools to add to their portfolio of retirement planning products. This course provides a clear overview of two unique retirement planning tools now available: deferred income annuities (DIAs) and qualified longevity annuity contracts (QLACs). The course fully explores DIAs: what they are, how they are designed, and how they work. The second part of the course explains the QLAC rules and how deferred income annuities can be used to generate a guaranteed income stream for IRA, 401(k) and 403(b) participants, exempting the funds used to purchase the QLAC from the minimum distribution calculation.