Back in 2007, Informed Choice became the 99th firm of Chartered Financial Planners in the UK.
We were proud of this achievement as a firm and remain proud to this day.
The Chartered Financial Planners title is only awarded to firms committed to developing and maintaining the knowledge and capability of their people so they can deliver the highest quality advice.
It was good to see today that the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) is consulting on even tougher criteria for Chartered firms.
The proposals could result in firms being required to employ more individual Chartered Financial Planners to qualify for the corporate title, with Chartered individuals playing a ‘prominent’ role in the advice process.
This could mean at least half of the firm’s advisers must be Chartered individuals; a Chartered individual must triage all new customers; or a Chartered individual must sign off all advice before it is issued.
We like this proposal as investors who work with a firm of Chartered Financial Planners would naturally expect the involvement of a Chartered Financial Planner within the advice process.
Here at Informed Choice, four of our six Financial Planners are already qualified to Chartered Financial Planner status, with the remaining two on track to reach this standard in the coming months.
The CII consultation closes on 31st January 2014 (we responded as a firm today) and we might expect to see changes made to the criteria for corporate Chartered Financial Planner status by the end of next year.
This could inevitably result in some firms no longer being able to achieve the corporate Chartered status, but it should give consumers of retail financial services greater confidence that they are dealing with a truly professional firm of advisers.
