None of the ideas I have expressed here are new or even mine. I joined a movement already in progress—professionalizing financial planning. Regulating a title and requiring a bona fide fiduciary duty are good steps but those steps don’t go far enough.
Personal finance is not getting less complex for the public. Separate regulation of planning as a distinct profession is needed more than ever. It won’t stop bad behavior but it will reduce it and give us a method of addressing it that does not exist today. The public deserves such a regime and so does the financial planning profession.
Dan Moisand, CFP, has been featured as one of America’s top independent financial advisors by several publications, is a past president of FPA and is a popular speaker on all things related to retirement advice and the profession of financial planning. He practices in Melbourne, Fla. You can reach him at www.moisandfitzgerald.com.