Educational standards for Certified Financial Planners will be reviewed, upgraded and enforced by a new board, the Council on Education, being created by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. The new standards will affect the 57,000 financial planners holding the CFP designation as well as potential planners seeking the certification.
The CFP Board, the not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that sets standards and determines educational requirements for CFP designees, says it is forming the advisory educational council to establish new standards to meet the changing requirements for financial planners. The council will develop a model curriculum, determine continuing educational requirements, review course providers and implement a peer review process, among other things.
Representatives from academia, CFP certificants and the public will be members of the council. All recommendations will be submitted to the CFP Board for approval. The goal of the CFP Board is to set recognized standards for practitioners of personal financial planning.
"Our educational standards must be periodically reviewed in order to properly reflect the financial world in which our certificants practice," says Kevin R. Keller, CFP Board CEO.
Dr. Ivan C. Roten, CFP, director of the Financial Planning Center at Appalachian State University, will act as council chairman. He adds, "Since education is one of the four cornerstones of the certification process, we intend to provide an unshakeable foundation for CFP certificants to apply their financial planning knowledge most effectively to their clients' ever-changing financial situations."