It’s human nature that we value most highly those things that are most difficult to obtain. Conversely, things that are easy to come by are valued less. The fact it’s so easy to achieve RG146 compliance and start working as a financial planner might be one of the very things turning off potential entrants to the industry.
Kevin McAlister recently graduated from Monash University. Before he started there, he thought about becoming a financial planner, but it seemed too… easy. There was no challenge and therefore no satisfaction in the achievement.
For McAlister, and presumably hundreds (if not thousands) of young people like him, there’s simply no cachet in becoming a financial planner – at least, not compared to law or accounting or medicine or any of the other established professions.
But that’s changing. In March Griffith University became the first university in the country to be accredited by the Financial Planning Education Council (FPEC) – an independent body charged with setting and developing a uniform national curriculum for university financial planning courses.
The FPEC process is robust, detailed and mirrors the process that universities must go through to have their courses accredited by other professions. Professor David Lamond, from Victoria University, chairs FPEC and says its accreditation process meets international standards. Mark Brimble, from Griffith University, says its application filled 60 pages, plus about 1000 pages of attachments and supporting evidence.
The cover story in the May edition of Professional Planner, due out this week, looks at FPEC’s work, and Brimble and Lamond assess its likely impact on the future of the industry.
Over the next year and a half, other universities will seek and receive FPEC accreditation, and people like Kevin McAlister will have a tougher decision to make. And the benefits for the financial planning industry will be obvious.
Belinda Kennedy completed Griffith’s financial planning course – prior to its formal accreditation – and walked straight into a job. In fact, she already leads a team of paraplanners at her employer, Rothgard Financial Partners.
If Kennedy is indicative of the kind of young, capable and hugely motivated individuals that universities produce – and if such individuals are produced uniformly across all accredited universities – then the future of the industry is not only bright, it’s also truly professional.
Agree – the higher the barrier to entry the better the applicant is likely to be. Now the real problem, how to remove those with basic RG146 only from pretending to be ‘real’ financial planners?
Well done Simon, you have managed to come up with a full page of dribble based on the premise that most financial planners in the industry got there by doing a RG146 course.
I am a great believer in education. We can’t have too much of it. However to say that the ‘next generation of planners will be professional’ because of a tertiary degree is a nonsense. Professional is as professional does. In other words calling yourself professional does not make you one. It is whether you act in a professional manner. This industry has a lot that are far from acting in a professional manner, but so does the accountancy profession, the legal profession and the medicos who are not without their problems also as the courts continue to
attest.
Personally, I am not hung upon being called a profession like many are. Some seem to think this makes them somehow more important in the community. I would rather be a successful businessman who runs his business in a professional manner.
I have seen many degreed ‘professionals’ whose personal relationship skills are poor, whose written communication skills are almost non existent and who cannot spell to save their lives.
I also know many, with industry qualifications but without degrees, who know what they are talking about and care about their clients. To these, the industry is a calling, to many others it’s just a job.
Whilst I am all in favour of raising the education requirements for Financial Planners, having a University Degree does not make anyone a Professional. There are plenty of accountants and lawyers who have completed a University Degree who I would never consider to be professional. Being a professional is determined by how you treat you clients, not just the fact they you have a degree. I personnally do have a Bachelor of Commerce (Melb) as well as a DipFP but they alone do not make me the professional that I am.