The Institute of Financial Advisers held a Certified Financial Planner Professional Day.

There, it revealed data about the experience of those with CFP designation, and those who employed them. A study found that 40% of advisers received a promotion, got a new job or started their own practice after becoming certified. Almost 70% grew their client base. More than 90% retained clients for longer.

CFP is roughly equivalent to an undergraduate degree and advisers at the event said it was significantly more difficult to obtain than AFA status.

IFA president Nigel Tate said: “It’s not cheap to become certified so if we can show then that what they spend has value, the hope is that some more will take up the designation.”

About three-quarters of firms that hired CFP advisers said they were a lower compliance risk.

Tate said too many people were only ticking the boxes the FMA required of them and not bothering to tackle any further qualifications. CFP numbers have declined over recent years, from a peak of about 412 to 372.

The drop in CFP advisers had coincided with the introduction of regulations, with the accompanying increased costs. Tate said some had started to come back but about a dozen had opted out of keeping up CFP designations because of cost.

Tate said a lot of countries had baseline standards but IFA members should not see themselves as equivalent to that.  The challenge was to show people the value in extra qualifications, he said. “We wanted to bring in CFP because we don’t want people to be the minimum.”

Noel Maye, the chief executive of the Financial Planning Standards Board, said striving for extra qualifications was part of what had to happen for the the industry to be recognised by others as a profession. He said almost all of the financial advisers in China – where the industry is growing immensely – had university level qualifications.

But he said there were other changes that needed to happen too, such advisers not being so quick to criticise their peers.

Studies had shown that while people trusted their own adviser, they did not trust the industry as a whole.  He said it was very rare for doctors to bag each other. “But we pile in there. It’s a great opportunity for us to change the dialogue and find a way to move forward.”

Maye said professional bodies needed to represent a clear voice in each country. “If we can’t get our house together, it’s hard to get consumers and regulators on board.”