Seven months on from Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's budget promise to improve the standards of insurance salesmen, the examinations are ready to begin - but doubts remain as to whether salesmen are ready to sit them.
First exams for the Insurance Intermediaries Quality Assurance Scheme (IIQAS) are to be held on October 25, with the organisers expecting about 150 to 200 applicants to take part.
However, the exam to qualify insurance intermediaries to sell Mandatory Provident Fund products began in August and many insurers and their salesmen are expected to make that exam their main priority.
'The MPF will be more popular than the [IIQAS] insurance exam,' said Fong Kwong-yee, head of the Continuing Professional Development Centre at the Vocational Training Centre, which is running both the IIQAS and the MPF tests.
He said he had received inquiries about the IIQAS from a number of banks. The insurance companies had shown less interest to date.
The IIQAS was introduced in last year's policy speech and has been developed with the co-operation of industry bodies, such as the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers, the Life Insurance Council and the General Insurance Council.