The Canadian Securities Institute (CSI) will continue to be the sole provider of proficiency education to investment dealer personnel for at least the next five years as a result of a new deal the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) announced on Tuesday.

Following IIROC’s review of its existing approach to proficiency, the self-regulatory organization (SRO) will be retaining the CSI to provide the courses required of industry representatives — albeit amid extensive changes to the arrangement with the CSI. Specifically, IIROC’s new five-year deal with the CSI includes price caps, enhanced oversight and plans for a more competitive bidding process when this new contract expires at the end of 2020.

Since the CSI was spun off from IIROC’s predecessor, the Investment Dealers Association of Canada, the CSI had a 10-year exclusive deal to be the sole provider of industry education for licensing reps. That deal is set to expire in January 2016. In anticipation, IIROC launched an industry consultation last year to consider possible reforms to its approach to proficiency.

In response, some in the industry called for greater competition in the business of providing industry education. However, in a notice setting out its decision, IIROC indicates that it has decided that a single-provider model “best serves the public interest at this time.”

According to IIROC’s notice, the SRO is not certain that educational firms would offer low enrolment courses on a high quality, cost-efficient basis if it adopted a multiple provider system.

“It is IIROC’s view that the retainer of a single provider will best ensure quality, reliability, accessibility and efficiency in delivery of education services with respect to all 19 regulatory courses,” the SRO’s notice says. “It is also IIROC’s view that a transparent and competitive procurement process is appropriate and beneficial.”

As a result, IIROC is adopting a new model that will see it award the job of delivering industry education to a single provider for five-year terms. In the future, these contracts will be awarded “through a transparent and competitive procurement process to reap the benefits of competition within a single-provider context,” the SRO’s notice says.

Under the new model, IIROC will also be setting competency standards that will outline the knowledge a person should have to complete a given licensing course successfully; it will be publishing those standards as well.

The IIROC notice says the SRO believes that transparent standards “will bolster investor and industry confidence in the proficiency system and the qualifications of IIROC [reps] and strengthen IIROC’s proficiency regime.”

The new contract with CSI, which will run from Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2020, also imposes new price caps. The agreement limits price increases for courses taken by employees of IIROC-licensed dealers to 1.75% per annum per course; it also caps price increases for the Canadian Securities Course (CSC) at 1.75% for both IIROC and non-IIROC members. It does not otherwise restrict non-IIROC pricing.

The new agreement also does away with the exclusivity guarantees that CSI had in the previous arrangement, including prohibitions on IIROC offering courses, or recognizing equivalent proficiencies; it imposes performance standards, when it comes to things such as updating course content, and exam result turnaround times; and it gives IIROC the ability to retain another provider and/or revoke recognition of a CSI course in the event of a continuing quality failure, among other things.

“High proficiency standards, rigorous ethical requirements and mandatory continuing education are fundamental to investor protection and the integrity and efficiency of capital markets,” says Andrew Kriegler, IIROC’s president and CEO, in a statement. “This agreement best ensures quality, reliability, accessibility and efficiency in the delivery of education services, which are more important than ever given the changing investment landscape.”