The financial planning profession exists to help people reach their financial goals and dreams. Financial planners demonstrate and support a professional commitment to education and a client-centered financial planning process.
The Financial Planning Process
Financial planning is the process of establishing personal and financial goals and creating a way to reach them. The ongoing process involves taking stock of all your existing resources, developing a plan to utilize them and systematically implementing the plan in order to achieve your short- and long-term goals.
The plan must be monitored and reviewed periodically so adjustments can be made, if necessary, to assure that it continues to move you toward your financial goals. Those seeking a Certified Financial Planner career are held to high standards of education, experience and ethics.
P. Kemp Fain, Jr. Award
Who to Nominate: Candidates for the P. Kemp Fain, Jr. Award exemplify FPA’s values, a vision for the profession, and are recognized for lifetime achievement. Candidates are professionals who have made significant contributions to the financial planning profession in the areas of:
- Service to society
- Service in academia
- Service in government activities
- Service in professional activities
Heart of Financial Planning Award
Who to Nominate: The Heart of Financial Planning Award recognizes those who engage in extraordinary work, contributing and giving back to the financial planning community and the public through financial planning. Recipients can be individual professionals (e.g. CFP®, attorney, professor, journalist), financial planning firms, FPA chapters, or organizations.
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Career Professionals
Also known as CFP® certificants, these individuals must meet the following qualifications, as specified by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc., in order to use the CFP® marks:
Examination
An individual must successfully complete the CFP® Board's comprehensive certification examination, which tests the individual's knowledge on a number of key financial planning topics.
Experience
Depending on the level of degree work completed in a collegiate setting, an individual must acquire three to five years of financial planning-related experience prior to receiving the right to use the CFP® marks.
Ethics
An individual must voluntarily ascribe to the CFP® Board's Code of Ethics and additional requirements as mandated. This voluntary decision empowers the CFP® Board to take action if a CFP® certificant should violate the code of ethics. Such violations could lead to disciplinary action, including the permanent revocation of the right to use the CFP® marks.
Education
A CFP® certificant must obtain 30 hours of continuing education every two years in the body of knowledge pertaining to financial planning areas such as:
- Estate Planning
- Retirement Planning
- Investment Management
- Tax Planning
- Employee Benefits
- Insurance
CFP® Board
The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc., is a professional organization that regulates the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ marks and requires certificants to subscribe to the CFP® Board's Code of Ethics.
