Professional Certifications demonstrate experience, specialization, and an ongoing commitment.
The most reputable professional organizations, who confer certifications, have prerequisites, specialized course work, qualifying exam(s), continuing education requirements, and a code of ethics. For consumers, they provide a database of certificate holders in good standing and a process for enforcing their code of ethics.
Attaining CFP® certification is a highly respected professional achievement for those who provide advice and counsel to individual clients on a wide variety of financial matters.
Ethics
The CFP Board adopted a new Code of Ethics effective October 1, 2019 with an enforcement date beginning June 20, 2020. The new standard changed from voluntary compliance to a mandatory requirement that CFP® certificants act as a fiduciary at all times and for all services provided. This is an important and controversial change as many current CFP® certificants may be prohibited, by their wall street employers, from using the designation after the enforcement date.
Knowledge and Experience
Every CFP® certificant has at least three years of industry experience and has passed a 10 hour comprehensive examination on subjects that include financial planning, insurance, income taxation, planning for retirement needs, investments and estate planning. CFP® certificants are required to complete 30 hours of continuing education every two years.
Recognition
The CFP® certification has become the recognized standard of excellence for personal financial planning. Consumers increasingly seek out professional financial planners who have invested the time and dedication to achieve the CFP® certification.
- Code of Ethics
- Requirements
- Enforcement
- Verification:
CFA charterholders are dedicated to lead the investment profession globally by setting the highest standards of ethics, education, and professional excellence.
Ethics
World economies and markets depend on widespread trust. It is this responsibility — the trust bestowed upon investment professionals — which makes the CFA Institute’s ethical standards so important.
CFA charterholders promote high ethical standards and investor protection through professional codes of conduct, guidance, and outreach. The CFA Institute investigates allegations of ethical or professional misconduct and rigorously enforces the Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.
Knowledge and Experience
A CFA charter holder must have four years of qualified investment work experience, pledge to adhere to the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct on an annual basis, and complete the CFA Program.
The CFA Program is organized into three levels, each culminating in a six-hour exam. The Program reflects a broad body of knowledge developed and continuously updated by active practitioners to ensure that charterholders possess knowledge grounded in the real world of today’s global investment industry.
Recognition
Attaining the CFA certification has become the gold standard for investment managers. CFA charterholders are recognized as an elite global community of nearly 90,000 investment professionals committed to upholding the highest standards of investment education, ethics, and professional excellence.
The AICPA has established a credential for CPAs who specialize in personal financial planning (PFP). The PFS credential is granted exclusively to CPAs with considerable PFP experience who want to demonstrate their knowledge, skill, and experience by earning this exclusive credential.
Background
Clients need an enormous amount of trust to put their hard-earned assets into the hands of a credible financial advisor. When selecting an advisor, they will consider qualifications including financial planning expertise, experience, reputation, credentials, how the advisor is compensated, and the ability of the planner to remain objective while acting in the best interest of the client.
Consequently, the AICPA saw the need to develop a specialty credential in financial planning exclusively for CPAs, because in a competitive marketplace clients consider specialty credentials to be proof of knowledge and skill. The Personal Financial Specialist Credential (PFS) was created in 1987 for the sole purpose of distinguishing the skills and reputation of CPAs in the broader financial planning market; to set them apart from the “alphabet soup” of other financial planning.
Ethics
This designation can only be acquired by CPAs who are AICPA members (binding them to the Code of Professional Conduct).
Knowledge and Experience
A PFS Candidate must earn a minimum of 3,000 hours of financial planning business experience in addition to continuing education within the five year period preceding the date of the PFS application and a comprehensive and rigorous personal financial planning exam. There are nine areas that make up the PFS Body of Knowledge: Personal Financial Planning process, Income taxes, Insurance, Investments, Retirement, Employee Benefits, Estate Planning, Charitable Planning, and Special Needs.
Recognition
When compared to other financial planning credentials, the PFS is not the most widely known designation among consumers. Recognition of the PFS is increasing, however, as PFS is repeatedly being mentioned and recommended by personal finance reporters in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, and others. Even without the highest brand recognition, PFS signifies a higher level of skill and knowledge and carries greater prestige to many. Only CPAs can become PFS Credential Holders.
With the rise in divorce, particularly among older Americans, the financial facets of divorce has become more complex. Whether you are filing for divorce under the traditional Court system or a Collaborative Divorce, a CDFA® can help during a very emotionally intense period to make sound financial choices as you restart your life. A CDFA professional has financial planning, accounting, or legal background and goes through an intensive training program to become skilled in analyzing and providing expertise related to the financial issues of divorce. They do not provide legal advice but rather compliment your attorney. The Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts™ (IDFA) administers this designation.
Ethics
The Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility is provided as an expression of the ethical standards that the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts™ has adopted and every Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® has agreed to abide by. The code applies to every Certified Divorce Financial Analyst designee and candidate in conducting divorce-planning work.
Knowledge and Experience
The CDFA® must demonstrate mastery in financial aspects of divorce through a four hour exam to receive the designation. Prerequisites include a bachelor’s degree with three years of experience in financial planning or family law practice. To assure continuing competency in tax codes, legislative and other ongoing developments in the field of divorce financial planning, fifteen hours of related continuing education every two years is required.
Recognition
The CDFA professional is recognized as a resource to both the client and attorney to understand how the financial decisions made today will impact the client’s financial future.
A Certified Financial Transitionist® (CeFT®) is a financial services professional who understands the power of the personal side of money and the challenges of major life transitions. Studying how people subjectively experience change, CeFTs® are able to guide clients in embracing change to achieve their highest potential.
CeFTs® utilize process and tools as an integral part of the experience as they support the client transition from what was to what can be. The methods and approach of a CeFT’s® work go beyond traditional technical financial planning. It requires a different kind of listening, a letting go of the seat of authority, and an ability to sit with and through uncertainty, which we refer to as personal planning.
Ethics
The Financial Transitions Insitute (FTI) has adopted a Code of Ethics based on seven principles. These Principles are general statements expressing the ethical and professional ideals that CeFTs® are expected to display in their professional activities.
Knowledge and Experience
A one-year training program is required which involves the study of stages of transition, the emotional implications of financial transition, and the development of skills that most effectively help during transitions. The course work culminates in a written case study, a role-playing oral exam, a structured response, and a multiple-choice test. Prerequisites include a financial planning background and solid technical skills in addition to having at least one financial designation such as CFP®, CIMA®, CPWA, CFA®, CFA®, CFC®, CDFA®, or CPA/PFS and at least five years of face-to-face contact with clients. Annually, fifteen hours of related continuing education, at least ten through the Financial Transitionist Institute, is required to maintain the certification.
Recognition
The CeFT® is the first designation specifically geared toward financial change and transition.
Granted by the Institute of Business & Finance, the CFS® designation is a highly respected professional achievement for those who advise individual clients on their investments.
Knowledge and Experience
Every CFS® advisor has at least 2,000 hours of experience completed in the financial services industry prior to completing the CFS® course. CFS® candidates must complete a comprehensive advanced program of approximately 135 hours designed to educate the advisor on every aspect of modern portfolio theory (MPT), mutual funds, ETFs, REITs, UITs, EANs, CEFs, asset rebalancing and taxation. Three examinations must be passed in order to graduate. Every CFS® advisor is required to regularly complete 30 hours of continuing education every two years.
Recognition
The Institute of Business & Finance (IBF), a non-profit organization that has been educating the financial services industry for 24 years, offers the CFS designation. IBF has no bias; it is not affiliated or influenced by any brokerage firm, insurance company, or product group. CFS materials are written by advisors for advisors with the individual investor in mind.
Granted by the Institute of Business & Finance, the Certified Estate and Trust Specialist (CES®) designation demonstrates the advisor’s expertise and commitment to helping individuals plan for the passing of a loved one and their effective transfer of wealth – chiefly how to maximize passing one’s wealth on to a spouse and future generations while mitigating estate taxes.
Knowledge and Experience
This accredited program is a 60-hour self-study program. Designees must pass three ninety-minute examinations within a one year period. Designees must complete 15 hours of continuing education, reported once every year.
Recognition
The Institute of Business & Finance (IBF), a non-profit organization that has been educating the financial services industry since 1988, offers the CES® designation. IBF has no bias; it is not affiliated or influenced by any brokerage firm, an insurance company, or product group. CFS® materials are written by advisors for advisors with the individual investor in mind.