What? CFP practitioners Have Taken the … ‘Extra Step’?

May 2001

By- Paul M. League, QFP, CFP^®

www.IAQFP.org / info@IAQFP.org

The CFP Board continues to distinguish “Certificants” from “practicing Certificants”, practitioners from so called “non-practitioners”, in ways that are professionally demeaning & misleading, and that results in their creating “classes of Certificants”; namely, superior / inferior, “elite” / “lite”.

Copied herein below, from the CFP Board web site at http://www.cfp-board.org/, is the proving text…read it and come to your own conclusion (underlining added for emphasis):

“CFP^®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, and are marks owned by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board) which help you identify financial planners who are committed to competent and ethical behavior when providing financial planning services.”

“CFP^® practitioners have taken the extra step to demonstrate their professionalism by voluntarily submitting to the rigorous CFP^® certification process. In addition to significant education and experience requirements, they must pass a comprehensive exam that tests their personal financial planning knowledge and skills, continually update their abilities and abide by the CFP Board’s Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility (Code of Ethics) and Financial Planning Practice Standards (Practice Standards).”

Do you get the inference here…doesn’t this say to you, and the public for whom this brochure is intended, that ONLY, “CFP^® practitioners” have taken this “extra step” and are more qualified then non “CFP^® practitioners”. Also, how do you account for many Certificants who do not list themselves as “practitioners”, yet still perform financial planning activities. They have their own reasons for not being listed as “practitioners”, perhaps because they have a “full book”, nonetheless they do planning. The CFP Board may take the position that this is the very distinction they are trying to make through the use of this “term”; however, if so there is a correct way to do it and it is NOT by implying that someone listed as a “CFP^® practitioner” is somehow better than one who is not so listed.

Also, isn’t the taking of the comprehensive exam essentially the same thing as completing a “rigorous CFP^® certification process”… ALL CERTIFICANTS do this, don’t they?

For those of you who do not know the history on the original problem surrounding the “term” “CFP p/PRACTITIONER”, let me fill you in a bit since I am the party who uncovered it, exposed it, and is credited with the outcome resulting in the CFP Board withdrawing it as a pended Trademark:

First and foremost, upon my original discovery of this “term” (4/2000 – FPi post & “Open E-Mail Letter: ‘CFP-Lite…It’s Already Happened Again!’ “), it became clear that what we were really dealing with was a filed & pended new, and competing, Trademark to CFP^®. After having this publicly confirmed, at the reluctance and misdirection of the CFP Board, who kept claiming in writing and open forums that it was “merely” a descriptive “term”, and having the issue covered in FPi and other quasi public forums, the CFP Board did a 180 and did not renew the Trademark filing (announced in “CFP Board Report” newsletter of Sept/Oct 2000). Instead, they begrudgingly changed their position, and stopped using it as a Trademark in their publications and other media, and reverted to its present, still flawed, “term” usage. A significant part of this whole controversy centered on the fact that the CFP Board had withheld openly & clearly informing Certificants (so called “licensees and designees” at that time), for over 4 years, that what they were saying was a mere “term” was in actuality a filed, pended, new and competing Trademark to CFP^®. Further, they authorized Certificants, in their licensing renewal forms, all throughout that 4 year period, and beyond, while I was working towards a solution to the controversy, to openly use the so called “term”, thereby assisting the CFP Board in the marketing and spreading of the competing Trademark. Licensees, therefore, were blindly promoting and building a new Mark in competition to the one Mark (CFP^®) they thought they were and had been promoting over the last 30 years…that new Mark was “CFP PRACTITIONER”.

Their current usage, while better in the “light of day”, is still fraught with problems. ALL Certificants have taken the “EXTRA STEP”…not just the so called, “CFP^® practitioners”. Or, put another way, neither “CFP^® practitioners” or CFP^® Certificants have taken any “extra” step…we have all taken the exact same “step(s)”; namely, the taking and passing of the required education, exam/s, while also meeting the work experience requirements, etc. Clearly, it is nothing short of misleading to say that “CFP^® practitioners have taken the extra step to demonstrate their professionalism by voluntarily submitting to the rigorous CFP^® certification process” since, ALL of us who are CERTIFICANTS, have done exactly the same.

Again, the CFP Board is creating false and misleading distinctions between Certificants…those who are listed as “practitioners” (whoever they are, and whatever it is that they are doing so differently from the rest of us), and those who are not so listed. Is this fair, or even honest? Ask yourself, what class of Certificant are you …”elite” or “lite”?

Admittedly, while this more subtle usage may appear better than what proceeded it…is it correct yet? More importantly… is it really even safe? Is the CFP Board still tinkering with “CFP^®-Lites” at the potential cost of all Certificants? Just what are they up to now?