COVER STORY

Decades after the financial planning profession emerged , the question of who gets to use the name is still dividing people .

By Eric Rasmussen

2022 , IT SEEMS ODD THAT THE PROFESSION you belong to would be facing an existential crisis as simple as one enduring question , “ What is a financial planner ? And who gets to use the name ?”

Lawyers and doctors and nurses and accountants don ’ t have these problems , after all , even though those professions have certainly endured their own tumultuous histories . ( In the Middle Ages , you might remember from school , surgery was performed by barbers — since they were the ones with the razors .)

This throwback argument over the name “ financial planner ” might seem like a tiring philosophical question by now . Yet it ’ s had awfully real and dramatic ramifications this year — so real they led to the dissolution of a longtime advisory advocacy alliance .

In July , the Denver-based Financial Planning Association said it would be pursuing a multi-year advocacy effort to pursue legal recognition of the term “ financial planner ” through title protection . That meant , ideally , a legal definition would emerge so that anybody using the title meets certain standards that protect consumers and advance the profession .

“ Right now , anybody can call themselves a finan- cial planner , and that ’ s the problem ,” said Patrick D . Mahoney , the FPA ’ s chief executive officer , in an interview with Financial Advisor at the time . He added that 78 % of the association ’ s members want that protection .

Within a few weeks , the ramifications of its new mission became apparent when the association said it was leaving the Financial Planning Coalition , its longtime lobbying partnership with the CFP Board and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors . FPA board chair Skip Schweiss said the association ’ s new title focus was a major reason for the departure .

More specific reasons were left for observers to figure out . But some of the fissures among the coalition partners have become obvious . In making the announcement about title protection , the association notably failed to tie the definition of “ financial planner ” to the CFP marks , whose holders the association claims to represent . People behind the scenes said there was a strategy issue as well : The CFP Board wants to fight the title battle on the federal level , not in the states , which could lead to a patchwork of regulations and a burden on advisors

PHOTOGRAPHY VIA GETTYIMAGES . COM SEPTEMBER 2022 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 33