The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. is seeking comments from CFP professionals and stakeholders on proposed amendments to its experience requirement for initial CFP certification and revisions to its Disciplinary Rules and Procedures.

"We believe the proposed changes to initial certification will encourage more people who are providing quality financial planning services to the public, or who want to do so, to attain CFP certification," CFP Board chief executive Kevin R. Keller said in a statement. "And our proposed changes to the Disciplinary Rules will provide clarification to our rules and procedures, strengthen our investigative and hearing processes and incorporate best practices of established professions that have a disciplinary process."

The CFP Board's current experience requirement requires individuals seeking to attain CFP certification to complete three years of full-time work experience related to the personal financial planning process. The details of CFP Board's current work experience requirement are available at http://www.CFP.net/become/experience.asp.

The CFP Board recently convened a working group to review the experience requirement. The working group, composed of a diverse group of CFP professionals with a broad range of financial planning subject matter expertise, length of experience, business organizational models and academia, considered CFP Board's history with this requirement and other professional certification organizations' experience requirements. After substantive discussions, the group developed several recommendations for revising the experience requirement.

Among the revisions under consideration are:

    Differentiating the number of years required to complete the experience requirement through personal delivery of financial planning services to clients (two years) from the years required to complete the experience requirement through the supervision, direct support or teaching of financial planning services to clients (three years).
    Tightening the qualifying window for experience to five years before and after successful completion of the CFP exam.
    Given the proposed tightening of the qualifying window, eliminating the currency requirement that some experience be completed within six months of reporting work experience.
    Affirming CFP Board's support of internships, practicums and Residency Program opportunities as a valuable method of gaining financial planning experience.

To review the recommended revisions to CFP Board's Experience requirement, please visit CFP Board's website at www.CFP.net/downloads/CFPBoard_Experience_Proposal_2011-08.pdf.

Those wishing to comment on the proposed revisions should submit written comments no later than September 17, 2011. Comments may be sent to CFP Board by e-mail to [email protected] or by mail to:

CFP Board
c/o Michele M. Warholic, Esq., CAE
Managing Director, Education, Examinations and Talent
1425 K St., NW #500
Washington, DC 20005