Approved IAR CE Courses

This course teaches financial professionals how to deliver insights that clients can hear, understand, and act upon during periods of market stress. Drawing on financial counseling principles and applied behavioral psychology, the program explains why client emotions often block rational decision-making and how advisers can ethically work through that resistance. Participants learn how framing, contrast, anchoring, and social proof influence client perception of risk, return, and long-term outcomes. The class emphasizes translating market data into real-life meaning that aligns with client goals and values. By the end of the program, advisers will be better equipped to communicate expertise in ways that strengthen trust, improve client outcomes, and reinforce fiduciary responsibility.

Americans increasingly ask AI tools financial questions and receive answers that may draw on government agencies, financial publications, advisory firms, and other sources. Consumers need accurate, understandable information to evaluate their financial choices, recognize misleading claims, and know when personalized advice and not synthesized answers is necessary.
CFP Board’s public-policy priorities, which reflect its mission, recognize financial education as a way to help consumers avoid fraud and achieve their financial goals. Financial professionals can advance public knowledge of personal financial management by making trustworthy educational information accessible through AI search engines.
Simona Ondrejkova, CFP®, shows how to preserve the accuracy, context, and applicable disclosures consumers need when preparing financial planning answers for AI search engines. Participants learn to identify what consumers want to know, explain financial concepts in plain language, support answers with reliable evidence, and organize information so people and AI search engines can find, interpret, and cite it.
A practical financial-planning examples show how to identify and correct misleading or incomplete answers, distinguish general education from personalized advice, and apply procedures for professional review, documentation, and ongoing updates.

This course examines prohibited and unethical advisory conduct and the controls needed to recognize, escalate, and prevent it. Topics include unauthorized activity, excessive trading, misleading communications, conflicts, client financial dealings, recommendations, complaints, and supervisory accountability. Fictional scenarios connect legal boundaries to client autonomy, honest communication, fair treatment, and ethical decision-making. Learners evaluate actual authority and incentives and distinguish individual correction from systemic prevention.

This course explores the transformative power of DEI within financial advisory firms, emphasizing its ethical implications and strategic advantages. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how DEI principles foster innovation, enhance client relationships, and create equitable opportunities for employees. Through real-world case studies, actionable strategies, and regulatory insights, the course provides tools to integrate DEI into workplace cultures, client interactions, and long-term business strategies. This course empowers advisors, leaders, and compliance professionals to drive meaningful change, and position their firms as leaders in inclusivity and equity. By the end of the course, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and tools to create a more equitable financial ecosystem that benefits employees, clients, and the broader community

In this session, advisors will gain a comprehensive understanding of the SEC Marketing Rule (Rule 206(4)-1) and how to apply it to create effective, compliant marketing strategies. Compliance experts Joseph Antonakakis and Jeffrey Lang with discuss the foundational aspects of the Marketing Rule, including its history, scope, and key changes from prior regulations. Additionally, advisors will learn how to navigate complex requirements surrounding testimonials, endorsements, third-party ratings, and rankings, while understanding the necessary disclosures, accuracy standards, and best practices for each. By the end of the session, advisors will be equipped with practical strategies for balancing compliance with creativity, enabling them to enhance their marketing efforts while adhering to regulatory expectations and upholding their ethical duty to prospects and clients.[

To heighten the standard of conduct for broker-dealers, and their registered representatives, the SEC introduced Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI). Reg BI holds broker-dealers and their representatives to a set of standards that exceed suitability requirements. Reg BI requires broker-dealers and their reps to act in their retail customers' best interest when a recommendation is made, without placing the interests of the firm ahead of their customers' interests. Reg BI alsorequires firms to either eliminate or disclose and mitigate, conflicts of interest. This course describesRegulation BI in detail, including who it applies to as well as the obligations that it carries. The course also compares Regulation BI to the suitability standard that has been required for broker-dealers, and to the fiduciary standard standard that is required for investment advisers and their representatives. The course also describes the content, goals, and scope of the new Form CRS. The course ends with a discussion of compliance issues related to Reg BI and Form CRS.

This course develops the investment adviser representative's professional
responsibility toward older and vulnerable clients. It establishes why senior
protection is a fiduciary obligation rooted in the duty of loyalty rather than
a compliance topic, maps the exploitation landscape and its warning signs,
sets out the legal framework built to let advisers act on suspicion, and then
works the hardest problem the subject presents: what loyalty requires when
protecting a client means acting against that client's stated wishes.

It is written for advisers who already hold the foundational knowledge of
their fiduciary duties and who serve clients at or near the decumulation
phase, where a loss cannot be recovered through future earnings. Three
extended case studies carry the analysis into practice.

This course is intended for investment adviser representatives, and provides an in-depth review of financial exploitation of senior adults and how investment advisers can identify and prevent it. It includes five sections that focus on defining financial exploitation, risk factors of seniors, perpetrators of financial exploitation, identifying and responding to suspected exploitation, and suggested business practices for preventing financial exploitation.

This course will introduce the registered representative to some specific risks seniors face in today’s investment environment. We will closely examine the need for protecting the senior’s assets from “external” risks such as fraud, identity theft, investment risks, and “internal” risks such as the senior’s own mental health. The regulatory agencies are encouraging firms to increase their awareness of the dangers to seniors. As such, we will identify warning signs and present potential safeguards throughout the course.

A scenario-driven course focused on the ethical and professional responsibilities of investment adviser representatives when serving seniors and other vulnerable investors. The course addresses financial exploitation, diminished capacity, client autonomy, communication, privacy, trusted contacts, escalation, documentation, and protective practices