Financial Planning Association (FPA) chief executive Mark Rantall has called on the association's Certified Financial Planner (CFP) members to use the designation in full whenever possible as a way of building the CFP brand to the levels of recognition seen in the United States.
Chairing a panel session at the FPA professionals congress in Sydney, Rantall called for CFP designated planners in Australia to actively brand themselves as such and pointed to the success of the designation in other financial planning markets around the world.
Financial Planning Standards Board chief executive Noel Maye, speaking as part of the panel, said any discussion about the CFP designation within the profession and with clients was a discussion about the brand of financial planning.
"We are talking about our brand as planners and delivering on that brand. With the CFP designation we have moved from a time that people have not known what it meant to greater awareness of the meaning of the designation. However we need to continue to deliver on what people have come to expect of planners who hold the designation."
Australian Securities and Investments Commission deputy chair Peter Kell said any designation which spoke of quality within financial planning was a good thing from the regulator's point of view.
"It is hard for consumers up front to assess quality and so they need a proxy to make that judgement call. With the role the CFP designation plays, if it works well, then we would see that as beneficial," Kell said.
However Kell said it was the role of professional bodies, planners and their clients, and not the role of the regulator, to spruik the benefits of financial planners and advice.
"The challenge for the regulator is – do we sell a good news story? Our view is that if you have to rely on the regulator to do so then you are behind the eight ball already. It is far better that consumers and professional organisations do that work."
