The Financial Planning Coalition is a collaboration of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board), the Financial Planning Association (FPA), and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) to advocate for the best possible consumer protection by ensuring financial planning services are delivered with fiduciary accountability and transparency.
The like-minded partners of the FPC know that placing the interests of the client first raises the standards in the industry and distinguishes financial planners from many other financial services providers. The partners are also aware that passing basic laws to regulate the profession is the best way to protect consumers by ensuring the same standards across the board. Consumers recognize that too. In a recent survey commissioned by the Financial Planning Coalition, 83% of the educated voters surveyed favored basic, common sense financial planning regulation.
We support federal mandates to extend the fiduciary standard of care so that more Americans will be able to place their full trust in their financial advisors. The stakeholders of each of our organizations voluntarily adhere to the fiduciary standard of care through compliance with the standards of professional conduct established by their membership in, or certification by, one or more of our organizations.
We also seek the creation of an oversight board requiring anyone who holds himself or herself out as a financial planner to meet baseline competency and ethical standards. This will ensure further transparency and accountability for all in our profession.
Regulation of financial planners is one way to ensure that consumers can easily identify who is a financial planner and subject to a fiduciary standard of care. This is simply not the case under current laws. Americans should know that, by working with a financial planner, they are receiving the best possible care-and they have recourse if they feel they have been treated unfairly.