Alan Dick CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM, Chartered MCSI, Chairman of the newly-established IFP Professional Forum Committee, hopes the new unit will be fully live by mid-2016. Those wishing to become a CFPTM professional currently have to take a Level 4 certificate with another body to start the process. Mr Dick believes this has been a key reason why UK growth in CFPTM professionals has disappointed until now.
Mr Dick said: “I think this is critical; we want to grow the profession of financial planning. If we are going to grow it for the future we need new blood coming in. It might be existing paraplanners, advisers, or completely new blood out of university or school. At the moment I don’t believe there’s a way to do that. This new Level 4 qualification will mean we don’t have to keep sending people away from us just to get to the starting line.”