Financial planning industry groups urge enforcer role for CFP Board

With regulation of the financial planning industry all but a certainty, a coalition of industry groups is cobbling together a proposal to make the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. the rule setter and enforcer for the nation’s hundreds of thousands of unregulated planners. The effort is an attempt by the financial planning industry both to legitimize itself as a regulated profession and reverse the growing impetus of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc., which oversees securities brokers, to expand its domain to planners and advisers. “We have been working very hard on a legislative agenda that would have financial planning seen as a regulated profession differentiated from others in the financial services realm,” said Marv Tuttle, chief executive of the Denver-based Financial Planning Association. “We expect to inform all of stakeholder and constituents about the legislative agenda over the next couple of weeks.” The FPA this year joined with the Washington-based CFP Board and the National Association of Professional Financial Advisors of Arlington Heights, Ill., to form the Financial Planning Coalition to help shape legislation as Congress and regulators rush to reform oversight of financial services in the wake of global banking woes and the Bernard Madoff scandal. The coalition’s staff expects to present the CFP plan and legislative agenda to its voluntary board of advisers and planners May 8, Mr. Tuttle said, but has not yet hired lawyers or lobbyists to draft specific legislation. (For the complete version of this story, see Monday's issue.)