In theory, the efficient market is supposed to reward the business that create products and services that improve the lives of their customers, while businesses that create harmful or ineffective solutions generate no income and cease to exist. Industries where the marketplace is too inefficient, and/or where bad products and services can result in public harm, receive some type of regulation to ensure the public good. Given the remarkably inefficient nature of marketplace for advisor education, perhaps it's time for some sort of oversight there, too? :/
The members of Generation X and Gen Y have had a unique collective experience, including growing up in the age of computers and (especially for Gen Y) with immersive exposure to the internet and the information resources it provides. Questions that might have required a trip to the library or an Encyclopedia Brittanica can be answered in a 10-second Google search. So if clients can look up a financial question in a few moments on the internet, where does that leave the value of financial planning?
Read More...
After taking up the issue at their board meeting yesterday, the CFP Board officially announced this morning that the 80% fee increase for CFP certificants to support a public awareness campaign for the CFP marks has been approved. So now the only question is: Will it work? Will this mark the start of a new dawn for the growth of financial planning as a profession, or an(other) expensive failure in the annals of CFP Board history?
In light of the ongoing debates and discussion regarding the CFP Board's potential fee increase to support a new public awareness campaign, the FPA last week conducted a survey of their CFP members to poll for views about the proposal. And last night, the FPA has released the survey results in an email to members.
As financial planning fights for its standing as a full-fledged profession, we try to demonstrate its core value to society - that going through the financial planning process has a positive impact on achieving a client's goals. Yet for all we proclaim about our beliefs in the value of financial planning, why is it that virtually none of us think financial planning is valuable enough to pay for it ourselves?
Professional designation programs for financial planners continue to expand year by year - as some disappear, others (more?) emerge to take their place. And although many are appropriately critical of some designations in particular, the trend begs the question: is an expanding number of professional designation programs good news, or bad?
Earlier in the week, this blog posed a number of questions to the CFP Board in response to the Fact Sheet that the organization had issued, seeking to address a number of issues the planning community has raised that still appeared to be unanswered. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with several staff members at the CFP Board, and wanted to share the information that I received.
As debate - and some confusion - continues regarding the CFP Board's proposed fee increase, the organization has made a new fact sheet available to help address many of the questions and concerns that have been raised. However, it seems that a few of the pressing questions from the planning community are not entirely answered.
Many planners report that the primary reason their clients choose to work with them is a foundation of trust built with that individual client, which subsequently blossoms forth into a bona fide planner-client relationship. Accordingly, many planners have recently begun to ask: why the CFP Board fee increase to support public awareness of the CFP marks, if that’s not how clients select their planners anyway?
As discussion and debate rages on regarding the CFP Board's proposed 80% fee increase, and the associated public awareness campaign it is intended to support, much of the underlying concern seems to boil down to a simple issue: Is the CFP Board "our" champion? Should it be? Can it be?
