FPI raises financial planning standards with professional practice certification

The Financial Planning Institute of Southern Africa (FPI) has unveiled plans to award FPI approved Professional Practice certification to financial planning practices in South Africa who meet very high professional standards.

The announcement, which forms part of a comprehensive strategic overhaul by FPI, means that the institute will be in a position to significantly build on the work it has done over the past 30 years to successfully raise the professional standards and credibility of individual professional financial planners in South Africa.

According to Anthony Campher, CFP^®, FPI Head of Business Development & Membership Services, the decision to create an FPI Approved Professional Practice certification resulted from the recognition by the institute that consumers seeking financial planning services from professional practices desired greater levels of professional continuity in the management of their planning requirements.

“As is the case in most industries, financial planning practices experience staff turnover as professional practitioners leave the business, and are replaced, over time,” he explains, “by allowing qualifying practices to obtain professional financial planning accreditation, their clients can now rest assured that regardless of the financial planner they deal with in the practice, they will always enjoy the same high standards of professionalism and expertise.”

Campher explains that the new FPI Approved Professional Practice certification is available to financial planning practices in which at least 75% of the financial planner or advisory staff hold the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^® designation or will be certified within three years. The majority of the planners or advisors must at any time be CFP^® professionals. The first three practices who were awarded this status are Ascor, Consolidated Financial Planning and Efficient Advise.

“By making this Professional Practice certification available the FPI believes it will facilitate a significant step change in the way that qualifying financial planning practices are able to position themselves to their existing and prospective clients,” Campher points out, “not only by demonstrating their commitment to the highest possible standards of compliance, governance and professionalism, but also by creating the assurance that the quality of service they offer is not dependent on single individuals.”

Campher is also confident that the new FPI Approved Professional Practice certification will serve to further enhance the overall standards of South Africa’s financial planning industry and grow the number of highly qualified financial planning professionals to meet steadily increasing demand for these unique services.

“There are many professional practices that are already committed to developing the depth of South Africa’s financial planning talent pool,” he says, “and the new FPI Approved Professional Practice certification coupled with the various pathways we have created to achieving CFP certification will not only help to raise the standards of financial planning in South Africa, but also enable these practices to overcome any barriers to progress they may previously have faced in their own efforts to build the financial planning industry in this country.”