Part of our series of retrospective blogs celebrating IFA Magazine’s ten year anniversary, Barry Horner, Chief Executive Officer of Paradigm Norton reflects on the professionalisation of financial planning and argues there is still more work to be done.
Wikipedia reminds us that a ‘profession’ is an occupation founded upon specialised training, the purpose of which is to supply objective counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain.
Are we there yet? I would say- No, but we are well on the journey and we have certainly come along way since the ‘wild west’ days of pre the 1986 Financial Services Act.
We have a code of conduct, a generally accepted method of being remunerated by fees and the vast majority of firms are looking for their key financial planners to be either Certified, Chartered or preferably both. Thankfully we now have some of the basic building blocks in place.
What do we need going forwards?
- For financial planning firms and academic institutions to work together to create a new pipeline of young talent into the profession.
- For financial planners to embrace ‘coaching’ and recognise that much of what we have charged for historically is now freely available on the web.
- For better tech solutions to be made available that will allow talented financial planners to do what they do best, in the knowledge that at the touch of a button the financial analysis that clients require will be available.
- A thriving, strong and well supported professional body that genuinely gets ‘financial planning’, that can deliver great value to its members.
