I’ve decided to ditch this journalism lark and become a financial planner. Better money, probably. And a step up in the public opinion stakes, too. That’s a win-win, as far as I’m concerned.
There can’t be that much to it. I’ll spend a few hundred bucks and do a quick course to get RG146-compliant. I’ll find a dealer group willing to let me set up under its licence. I’ve got the book, Financial Planning for Dummies, and I saw something called the Master Guide to Financial Planning in Dymocks the other day – I’ll buy that, too, if only so it looks good on the bookshelf. (I’ll probably keep the Dummies guide out of sight.)
I might struggle to gain Certified Financial Planner (CFP) status, but that’s not a deal-breaker – there are plenty of financial planners out there who are not CFPs.
I own a suit and a calculator and even an old Armstrong Jones leather briefcase that I can scrub the mould off. I’ll get a haircut. There’s a serviced office I can rent, just down the road from home. I could be up and running in the New Year.
How would you feel if I were to start calling myself a financial planner? You should be annoyed and dismayed, at the very least. You should also be downright embarrassed.
You should, in fact, do everything within your professional powers to stop me.
I’ve often said, only half in jest, that if there’s nothing to stop me from setting up and calling myself a financial planner, then the barriers to entry are too low.
Right now, they’re way too low. I don’t think anyone seriously doubts that.
Raising the barriers to entry – keeping out people like me – should be high on the industry’s to-do list, if not the number one item. So it’s with some anticipation that we await a major policy announcement from the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) on just this issue.
Just over a year ago, the FPA issued a consultation paper, Education expectations for professional financial planners. The FPA board’s thinking on the education issue was clear then, and by all accounts it hasn’t changed significantly since.
Being a financial planner should, first and foremost, be something to be proud of. It should not be the case that planners are constantly defending their business and their industry against accusations of shonkiness and lax standards.
It should be something that requires dedication and hard work, and requires more than cursory study. So second, becoming a financial planner should be a genuine achievement. And third, the public needs to be told -bludgeoned about the head, if need be, until it sinks in – that a “professional” financial planner is a true professional: highly educated, qualified, held to exceptionally high standards of behaviour and conduct, accountable to other professionals – and subject to sanction by their peers, where appropriate – and unequivocally committed to the public interest.
You will only be regarded as a professional when and if the public – the general community – believes that you’re professional.
It also doesn’t help the public perception when websites like The Eureka Report are exposing the millions of dollars of soft-dollar payments made to financial planners by product manufacturers.
It’s not just that the payments look unprofessional (even though they do); the problem is more that the payments directly contravene a voluntary code of practice drawn up by the FPA and the Financial Services Council (FSC).
Right now, if people like me can get in, there isn’t a hope. That’s why everyone who is serious about raising the bar and aiming for true professionalism should wholeheartedly support the FPA’s stance on education. The only caveat is that we’ve yet to see the fine detail of the plan; but if we take the November 2009 paper as a guide, it’s heading in the right direction.
It’s one thing to set standards for new entrants – do that yesterday, as far as I’m concerned – but of critical importance will be how the FPA decides to deal with those who already work as financial planners. Professional Planner will be attending the FPA conference in late November, and will be at the formal unveiling of the education plan.
We’ll report back on what the FPA has to say, its specific aims, and how it plans to achieve them, on this, and on a range of other issues. Keep an eye on Professional Planner Online from November 22 to 26.
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This is the final edition of Professional Planner for 2010. We’ll be back in late January with the February ’11 edition, which will also mark a return to monthly publication.
When we launched, in late 2007, we published monthly, but like everyone else, we were forced to make changes to the business during the global financial crisis.
In April 2009, we started publishing every two months.
But as the worst effects of the GFC begin to recede, we’re looking forward to landing in your in-tray more frequently once again.
Simon Hoyle
simon.hoyle@conexusfinancial.com.au
