Tuesday 22nd of June 1999

The Financial Planners and Investment Advisers Association (FPIA) formally took over the licence for the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) mark just over a week ago.
FPIA CFP college chairman Phillip Matthews says a representative from the CFP came down from the United States to officially sign documents which enable the licence to be transfered from the Association of Investment Advisers and Financial Planners (IAFP) to its replacement body the FPIA.
Also the CFP Board of Standards last week announced two new initiatives for financial planners in the US. One is a new designation, the Associate CFP, and the second is an accreditation programme for firms and training programmes.
The Associate CFP is a threshold level financial planning designation which will require a financial planner to be involved in the planning process, having partly completed the academic requirements needed to become a CFP, and will have to honour a code of conduct and ethics.
Under the accreditation programme training providers will be able to refer to themselves as being "CFP Board Accredited".
These initiatives are only available in the US, however, Matthews expects they will be offered to other countries licenced to use the CFP designation.
"My personal opinion is that they seem to be a good move towards expanding the CFP community and more importantly of increasing the number of financial advisers who are operating under a code of professional conduct."