‘India is moving in the right direction on financial planning’

What is the goal of FPSB?

My organization is a global non-profit standards setting body. Our mission is to set professional standards for financial planning and our vision is to fundamentally recognize financial planning as a professional practice that benefits consumers around the world. We expect to end the year with approximately 200,000 certified financial planning professionals worldwide and 2,300 in India.

So, when we look at the size of the country’s population, and what lies ahead of us, India will have tremendous growth opportunity.

There was a local FPSB board, but currently you are directly present in India through your office.

Basically interest in financial planning in India has evolved over a period of time; Maybe for 15+ years. But in 2019, the global body took over direct administration of the program, and we’ve been delivering that program directly through the global entity since April 2019. We use existing education providers, existing exam providers like National Stock Exchange Academy and have added some new ones too.

After the section about direct administration of the program in India, there is the question of recognition by SEBI. As far as we understand it, CFP program is recognized by SEBI, but CFP candidates have to revise the course every three years. And this matter was discussed between SEBI and you. Do you see any clarity on this?

To earn CFP certification, you must take an education course, complete your exams, add several years of experience, agree to abide by our code of conduct, and then you will receive CFP certification.

To renew your CFP certification, you must meet ongoing professional development and requirements. This FPSB is required for CFP certification. Therefore, the need for re-examination is not part of our global requirements. But what NISM said is that the CFP certification is what a person uses to obtain an investment advisor license; Those people will have to take the exam again. Therefore, CFP professionals in India use CFP certification to obtain an investment advisor license; They need to be re-tested every three-year cycle to be compliant with NISM accreditation.

What is the current status of the financial planning profession in India?

By the end of this year, we should have approximately 2,300 CFP professionals in India, and approximately 1,500 students in our program. We have something in the category of 600 people who have unique credentials. We have 15 education providers that are training those looking to do financial advice and financial planning, and then we have this large and growing community of physicians and their employers who are coming around to the concept. We are working with groups such as ARIA (Registered Investment Advisors Association), Network FP, FIFA (Foundation of Independent Financial Advisors) and many more associations that are already in conference to try and transfer our developed potential. Huh. Financial Services Market.

India is moving in the right direction; One of the things we are looking to do as FPSB is to make sure that we bring learning and ideas from the US, from Canada, from South Africa, to India.