As a CFP professional, you have earned the right to use the CFP certification marks. You meet the rigorous uniform requirements in education, experience, examination, and commitment to ethical behaviour pertaining to the professional activity of financial planning - the most rigorous requirements in Canada and in the world. But your licence to hold the designation year after year represents much more.
What is the CFP? What isn't it?
The CFP is the earned recognition of an ongoing commitment to professionalism in financial planning in Canada and globally. The CFP, if held year after year, is proof of who you are, professionally.
The CFP is not a membership in a trade association that lobbies on your behalf. It is membership in a profession that, as it evolves, will ultimately benefit all who represent and participate in it.
The CFP is more than an educational accomplishment, although education and examination of competence is an integral component of what it represents. It represents a career-long commitment to education and professional conduct.
You don't join the CFP. You don't join Financial Planners Standards Council. And asking, "What do I get for my licensing fee?" is missing this very important point: Earning and maintaining the CFP is about doing something for yourself and for your profession.
What does maintaining the CFP designation say about you?
Maintaining your CFP designation tells your clients, your employers and your colleagues that you are committed to a calling that asks you to actively participate in setting the bar of an emerging profession. As a CFP professional, you are distinguishing yourself as an individual who is actively assisting Financial Planners Standards Council in furthering the development of the CFP standards. As a CFP professional, you help ensure that the CFP standards and those who meet them continue to lead the evolution of the financial planning profession. By maintaining the CFP designation, you are actively assisting the development of professional standards that are relevant and recognized in a rapidly changing environment.
What recognition does the CFP have in the industry?
That the CFP is recognized as the "gold standard" in the industry is indisputable. Take a look at the numbers in the most recent annual study "The Financial Planning Report Card," conducted by Investment Executive. Clearly, more than half of all individuals holding themselves out as financial planners hold the CFP, and most of the rest are working toward it. Organizations in every sector are increasingly using the CFP to "brand" their planners as professionals. And companies are encouraging, through HR policy and financial support, the attainment of the CFP among their financial planners. (See Job Site)
Where are we on the regulatory front?
Regulators increasingly look to Financial Planners Standards Council to help them with their dual mandate of instilling public confidence in the financial markets and of protecting the public from being victimized by unscrupulous and unqualified intermediaries. Today, in the absence of uniform national and cross-sector regulation, it is only the CFP standards and the clear distinction of individuals who adhere to them that can lead the evolution of financial planning to a true profession - a profession that, like all other true professions, ensures its representatives understand and live up to the high level of trust and fiduciary responsibility they invite. With or without a regulatory standard, CFP will remain the mark of the professional financial planner in Canada and worldwide.
What about the CFP recognition in Quebec?
The regulatory regime in Quebec is unique. Currently only one government-sanctioned credential awarded by the IQPF can be used to identify oneself as a qualified financial planner: F.Pl. However, sweeping changes will result from the soon to be implemented Bill 107 that will establish a new single regulatory regime governing the financial sectors in Quebec. This new development has re-ignited the interest of those involved in its development and implementation to work with FPSC. Today, we are entering talks that we are hopeful will secure regulatory recognition of the CFP in Quebec soon.
Does the public know what the CFP stands for yet?
Not everyone, yet. We're only at the early stages of this evolutionary process. Initially it was important to have a sizable and geographically dispersed mass of individuals committed to the cause of financial planning professionalism - individuals easily distinguished and accessible to the public - before you can responsibly tell the public who these professionals are and how to find them. Otherwise, expectations are set that cannot be met.
What is FPSC doing to tell the public about CFP?
There are now sufficient numbers of CFP professionals to meet the expectations that we are raising in the marketplace. With a professional body of more than 15,000 CFP professionals that grows at the consistent rate of 1,200 to 1,600 new CFP professionals per year, we are ready to serve a public that is increasingly trusting of its financial advisors. So this year and in the foreseeable future, we will continually increase our efforts in educating the public about the significance of the CFP standards and our current CFP professionals' commitment to them.
In the end, only you can answer this. What does it mean to you to be an active participant in setting the highest standards in financial planning in the world? What is it worth to you, to be able to distinguish yourself as someone who is?
We sincerely hope you will continue to help us lead the development of a profession in which you and all your colleagues can take great pride.
CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® and are certification marks owned outside the U.S. by Financial Planning Standards Board Ltd. (FPSB). Financial Planners Standards Council is the marks licensing authority for the CFP marks in Canada, through agreement with FPSB.
are certification marks