Posted by The Team at Brand Financial Training on January 11, 2022 in Newsletter
11 January 2022
It’s been a manic first couple of weeks of 2022. It seems new year’s resolutions included a big push on exams for many of you – and we’re loving your enthusiasm!
The Brand team () are always on hand to answer your questions and help you with your revision, so keep your queries coming.
Wishing you a happy and healthy 2022.
Best Wishes,
The Team at Brand Financial Training
Featured Article
Understanding the Rules Surrounding State Pension Deferral
An exam question on State pension deferral is often a possibility if the client in one of your R06 case studies is approaching retirement (as they very often are!). This subject can also be covered in the CII’s R04, AF7 and J05 exams. So for those of you sitting these exams anytime soon, it’s well worthwhile doing a bit of research on how it works.
There is a significant difference in the rules surrounding State Pension deferral depending on whether someone reaches State pension age (SPA) before or after 6 April 2016.
Reaching SPA before 6 April 2016
For those individuals, who reached SPA before April 2016, the following rules applied:
Option to defer their State Pension in return for an increased income or a lump sum.
Deferral had to be for at least 5 weeks and in return, the pension amount increased by 1% for every 5 weeks deferred, which worked out as an increase of 10.4% per year.
If someone deferred for 12 months, a lump sum could be chosen instead with interest added at 2% above the bank’s base rate.
If someone is already in receipt of their State pension, they can subsequently decide to defer the income and the above rules will apply even if deferral is after 6 April 2016.
Reaching SPA on or after 6 April 2016
The rules for deferral on or after 6 April 2016 are not as generous
Anyone reaching SPA since 2016 has only been able to defer for an increased income; the lump sum option was withdrawn.
The deferral period was also increased to at least 9 weeks, with the rate of increase similarly reduced (1% for every 9 weeks); this works out as an increase of just under 5.8% for each full year of deferral.
How to Make the Most of Different Ways of Learning
As ever, the New Year provides a great opportunity for making positive changes and reassessing your life. There are always articles at this time of year about losing weight, finally writing that masterpiece novel or training for a marathon. But one rather more realistic resolution – one you could actually find yourself sticking to rather than giving up come mid-January – is to reconsider the learning methods you use. Identify the way(s) you absorb and retain information most effectively, then take full advantage of any method(s) that work for you.
Auditory learners
For some people, facts linger in the mind longer when they listen to rather than read them. If that applies to you, consider reading material out loud and recording it on your phone. That way, you can listen while doing something else, whether that’s the school run or the drive/train journey to work (assuming you’re still commuting) or, better still, while enjoying a wintry walk.
After all, getting outdoors boosts your brain activity, and you’ll burn some calories and improve your sleep quality at the same time. Being anywhere outside in nature can do wonders for your mental well-being, not least in these unusual times. And it can be a genuine pleasure to breathe in fresh air – even in cold weather. You may find you learn well this way, or equally, you could use it as a secondary learning method to consolidate what you already know.
Due to the popularity of our free R01 to R05 How to Pass guides, we have now developed guides for R06 and AF5. We’ve used our experience (over 10 years of helping candidates with these exams!) in providing you with a concise guide full of useful hints and tips to help with your revision and help you pass these tricky exams. These are available when you make a purchase or request a free taster for any of our AF5 or R06 resources.
Mock Papers
Available for AF1, AF4, AF7, CF1, CF6, CF8, ER1, FA1-2, IF1-5, J02, J05, J07, J10, J12, LP2, R01-5, and R07
...“I passed my exams 1st time after buying the 3 mock exam packs. They are very relevant and gave me that extra confidence in taking the exam. Thank you Brand 🙂 The service is excellent as well I might add.’...
Passing your CII exam isn’t only about having the necessary knowledge and understanding, it’s about being able to apply that knowledge in an exam setting exactly as needed and in a timely manner. It is essential that you practise multiple exam papers to ensure that you know exactly how to apply your knowledge. Too many people fail due to a lack of exam practice, even if their knowledge is good.
Our mock exam question papers ensure you get the practice you need to achieve exam success. Couple them with other resources in our study kits and you’ll be well prepared for your exam.
All answers include cross references to the relevant CII study text
All questions and answers are kept up-to-date to reflect changes to the exam syllabus and tax year
Written for essential exam practice, but are not duplicates of the CII’s mock papers
Download them instantly in PDF format and print as required
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Why not try before you buy? Download one of our free tasters:
Our experts are busy putting the finishing touches on our R06 analysis which will be released on Friday (earlier if we can).
January is going to be a busy month as we will also be preparing our AF5 analysis and we will be running our new training webinars for R06 and AF5, which are available to all candidates who have purchased our analysis package.
Each webinar will be two hours and will include a presentation by our lead analysis author and will include:
Training on the technical areas likely to come up in the exam.
A look at the possible questions that could be asked based on the case study/fact-find and the different ways the questions could be worded.
Guidance on how to answer the questions to maximise marks.
For those who are able to attend the session live, there will also be a Q&A at the end where our expert will answer questions. For those who can’t make the session, a webinar replay will be made available for viewing up until the day after the exam.
Both R06 and AF5 analysis packages are still available to pre-order with the £10 discount.
Important Dates
R06
Analysis release – 14th January
Case Study Focus Webinar – 20th January at 12.30 pm
AF5
Expected Fact-find release – 21st January
Analysis release – 28th January
Fact-find Focus webinar – 1st February at 12.30pm
(If you cannot make the live webinar, a recording of each will be made available the day after)
Updates to CII Study Texts
Here’s a reminder that the CII update their study texts throughout the examinable year to either incorporate new legislations, correct errors or clarify information. Many candidates aren’t aware of this, which can result in candidates studying out-of-date information.
To find out if you have the most up-to-date information, visit the CII website, navigate to your chosen exam and click on ‘learning solutions update’ in the ‘Unit updates’ section in the sidebar.
Note that we keep our resources up-to-date with any updates from the CII.
Did You Miss These Posts on Our Blog?
Articles and Help for All Your Exams
You’ll find that there’s something for everyone when you check out our blog:
specific topics and how-to articles;
reviews of recent CII exam papers;
our Friday Five – a weekly quiz to give you a fun break from reading the study text;
study techniques that help you to retain your revision and keep your brain working for you, when you need it
Here are the blog posts you might have missed since our last newsletter:
There’s such a variety of information on offer to help you as you tackle your CII exams, that you won’t want to miss a single post. We’ve made it easy for you; just click the button below and enter your email details. Be ‘in the know’ with CII-exam-related tips and info – straight to your inbox!
Quote of the Month
..." Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. "...
Vincent Van Gogh
Friday 5 Focus on...
"5 Questions in 5 Minutes Every Friday"
Each week, we ask questions relating to one of these topics: Investments, Taxation, Pensions, Protection, or Regulation. The challenge is for you to answer them in 5 minutes.
Where do I find the Friday Five?
We post each week’s Friday Five to our blog first thing every Friday. You can either visit our blog every Friday at https://brandft.co.uk/blog/ or you can simply go there now, and click on the subscribe button in the top right-hand corner of the blog and sign up to receive notifications of our Friday Five posts.
Note that we don’t email the Friday Five out to everybody every Friday, so we recommend you sign up to our blog at https://brandft.co.uk/blog/ so that you receive an email notification when it is posted. It will only take you a minute to sign up.
A bit of Friday Fun, but with the added benefit of testing your exam knowledge!
