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PalacioHill

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I am sitting for LII this June but my company is also wanting me to take the CFP and so I recently started the CFP education program which begins with Insurance planning. My question is what do you all think about the CFP and how it compares to the CFA program? I find that it is very broad and gears you to becoming a “jack of all trades” rather than a specialist, which seems pointless. I am not really that interested in this stuff and I find myself not devoting enough time to it, opting to study for LII instead.
 
Lol.. my company pulled the same move on me. I knocked out the CFP a couple of years ago and am sitting for L3 in June. CFP is comparable to Level 1 CFA. You are right in your “jack of all trades” comment because they say the CFP material is a mile wide and 2 inches deep. However, it does make you as close to a “specialist” in financial planning or wealth management as you can get these days. The two day exam part is not fun though.
 
I have the CFP designation in Canada. It’s usefull depending on what your job is. I find it that if you advise individual clients it can add a lot of value - you might not beat the market with your investment recommendations but you can sure save clients a lot of money with tax planning for example, not to mention the non-financial advice that can make your clients a lot more confortable with the situation. I used to find it somewhat useless but I don’t think like that anymore.
 
I am a CFA and CFP, took the CFP on a challenge basis. I think the CFP is very useful if you’re in wealth management. Even if you’re focusing on the investments, it’ll give you flavor for managing individual’s portfolios more “holistically.”
Assuming you pass level II and III on first tries, you can sit for the CFP on a challenge basis by Nov, 2012. Depending on how quickly you take the classes, you could be looking at taking it about the same time without having to take the classes…
 
If taken on a challenge basis, how much prep time are you looking at (guesstimate)?
 
If you’re a CFA, you should be able to skip studying the investment section (20% on the exam).
I work pretty heavily in financial planning and studied about 2-3 months and had no problem at all with the exam. I’d say its fair to compare study time to Level I, maybe a little bit more if you are completely green on income tax, estate planning, etc. I wouldn’t underestimate it though, some of the questions can be tricky just like the CFA exams.
 
my school advised me to not take the cfp as they were dropping their fpsc ‘partnership’ for leading a very disorganized and expensive designation. the student advisor actually laughed at the designation and said it will likely become a designation only offered with completion of college level courses, meaning no university grad in their right mind would have the designation in 10-20 years or so.
my advice: try and get out of having to attain a dying and wallet raiding designation. either way, best of luck.
 
I wouldn’t let the bias of a random student advisor at a random university (or the university itself) carry much weight. I did the CFP Certification Exam (the final one, I got out of the rest of the requirements by virtue of being a lawyer) and the program seemed to me well-done and to cover a lot of useful information (although obviously it’s for financial planners, not for investment professionals). I can’t see any good reason to think it’s “dying”, on the contrary I’d say.
 
If you are a general financial planner/advisor, doing the CFP is probably worthwhile, though it doesn’t provide nearly enough material to become a competent investor (though of course, based on what one reads on these boards, neither does the CFA). If your company wants you to do the CFP presumably it would be useful in your job.
 
the cfp is dying, at least in canada, because there are plenty of cfp substitutes that offer the same amount of information in a more organized way for 1/3 of the annual dues. and because the cfp is not needed to call yourself a financial planner, employers are beginning to respect all cfp type designations as the same in terms of ‘education requirements’.
and in reference to the university, it is the only one in canada which is/was partnered with the fpsc that holds any sort of reputation. its like harvard leaving the ivy league and expecting the ivy league to survive/operate just as well. once you lose your most credible ‘member’, in terms of financial and brand support, you lose credibility as a designation. with the loss of this university, there are very few universities partnered with the fpsc. i don’t doubt that the other universities will soon abandon the fpsc in order to maintain some degree of reputation (as the program is horribly run in canada).
again, i can only speak for canada, but once you start to lose countries all over the world, your global designation will lose relevance… imagine there were 10 cfa type designations that held the same amount of relevance as the cfa. would the cfa be worth as much? obviously not. the core problem with the cfp is within its cirriculum. because the cirriculum is different in every country, it will never be a globally respected designation and will never become a respectable designation in all countries due to differing laws regarding designations and differing workplace requirements (i.e. which designation you need to get the job).
 
Good points about different jurisdictions. I don’t think what you describe happening in Canada is happening in the US. There isn’t even one other similar designation in the US that’s nearly as good as the CFP for what it covers as far as I’m aware; I’m surprised there are several in (much smaller) Canada. I do’t think the university partners have much bearing on the designation’s acceptance in the US; they only provide training (sort of like Schweiser), you still have to pass the Certification Exam to get the designation. I’d think that the training programs are just a source of revenue for universities and they need the CFP more than the CFP needs them, at least here in the US.
 
That said, it appears we aren’t even really talking about the same designation so I suppose there’s no point in arguing about it. This probably should have occurred to me before I posted in the first place; sorry. I think my observations about the CFP in the US are pretty accurate though.
 
MattLikesAnalysis Wrote:
——————————————————-
> again, i can only speak for canada, but once you
> start to lose countries all over the world, your
> global designation will lose relevance… imagine
> there were 10 cfa type designations that held the
> same amount of relevance as the cfa. would the cfa
> be worth as much? obviously not. the core problem
> with the cfp is within its cirriculum. because the
> cirriculum is different in every country, it will
> never be a globally respected designation and will
> never become a respectable designation in all
> countries due to differing laws regarding
> designations and differing workplace requirements
> (i.e. which designation you need to get the job).
There are tons of accounting bodies worldwide (three in Canada). I don’t see any problems.
 
delero Wrote:
——————————————————-
> MattLikesAnalysis Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
>
> > again, i can only speak for canada, but once
> you
> > start to lose countries all over the world,
> your
> > global designation will lose relevance…
> imagine
> > there were 10 cfa type designations that held
> the
> > same amount of relevance as the cfa. would the
> cfa
> > be worth as much? obviously not. the core
> problem
> > with the cfp is within its cirriculum. because
> the
> > cirriculum is different in every country, it
> will
> > never be a globally respected designation and
> will
> > never become a respectable designation in all
> > countries due to differing laws regarding
> > designations and differing workplace
> requirements
> > (i.e. which designation you need to get the
> job).
>
>
> There are tons of accounting bodies worldwide
> (three in Canada). I don’t see any problems.
yeah but only one worth having. the problem is that the one worth having needs specialized work experience in order to achieve it…
 
Captain Windjammer Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Good points about different jurisdictions. I
> don’t think what you describe happening in Canada
> is happening in the US. There isn’t even one
> other similar designation in the US that’s nearly
> as good as the CFP for what it covers as far as
> I’m aware; I’m surprised there are several in
> (much smaller) Canada. I do’t think the
> university partners have much bearing on the
> designation’s acceptance in the US; they only
> provide training (sort of like Schweiser), you
> still have to pass the Certification Exam to get
> the designation. I’d think that the training
> programs are just a source of revenue for
> universities and they need the CFP more than the
> CFP needs them, at least here in the US.
yeah in Canada there are now only 7 universities (6 following the phase out of my university) that will be offering CFP education requirements with the rest of the education providers being colleges or CSI (i.e. our ‘Series 7’ equivalent exam provider in Canada).
of the remainging 6 universities, only three have a name for themselves, York, UVic and UCal. the problem is that York’s non-Schulich school of business is horrible, and UVic is not known for their business program. leaving only one school with a decent reputation offering CFP education, Huskayne. If Huskayne abandons the FPSC, which is inevitable if they want to maintain a good reputation, then CFP education will only be offered by the lowest tier universities and colleges.
what is the end result of all this? in a number of years, the average cfp desig. holder will be held by a college grad and the average cfp holder will be written off as any kind of expert in the financial field.
 
Is the CFP designation actually awarded by the universities in Canada? If not then I’m not sure the reputation of the universities offering education programs will make much difference.
 
Captain Windjammer Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Is the CFP designation actually awarded by the
> universities in Canada? If not then I’m not sure
> the reputation of the universities offering
> education programs will make much difference.
no universities do not award the designation but its means the Canadian CFP candidate pool becomes dominated by non-university goers. and non-university goers generally have lower IQs than university goers.
do you really want a high school graduate who took a few courses at a college to be a holder of the CFP designation? do you even want a college graduate who took a few courses at college to be a holder of the CFP designation? do you want high school and college graduates to be the ONLY new CFP members say five years from now? how would this reflect on the reputation of the CFP designation? and because it is only one day of exams (though i think they’re changing it to two days of less difficult exams), the odds of very unintelligent people squeaking through the exam are much higher than the CA and CFA designations (both of which require a university degree anyway, so as to keep people of ‘unproven intelligence’ out).
 
If you have to take an exams or exams to achieve the designation, then the caliber and preparation of the pool of people that achieve it will be determined by the exams, not by the means people use to prepare for it. For example, Schweser and Stalla are not Ivy League universities (or even universities at all, obviously), but that hasn’t seemed to hurt the reputation of the CFA charter.
Does the Canadian CFP organization really not require a college degree for the designation? I find that somewhat surprising, but I don’ think it matters much at the end of the day. The CFAI could probably do away with its college degree requirement without significantly watering down the quality of the designation, given the rigor of the program itself.
I don’t have any idea how difficult the Canadian CFP exam process is, but in my opinion that is what is going to have by far the biggest effect on the perceived quality of the designation.
 
Captain Windjammer Wrote:
——————————————————-
> If you have to take an exams or exams to achieve
> the designation, then the caliber and preparation
> of the pool of people that achieve it will be
> determined by the exams, not by the means people
> use to prepare for it. For example, Schweser and
> Stalla are not Ivy League universities (or even
> universities at all, obviously), but that hasn’t
> seemed to hurt the reputation of the CFA charter.
>
> Does the Canadian CFP organization really not
> require a college degree for the designation? I
> find that somewhat surprising, but I don’ think it
> matters much at the end of the day. The CFAI
> could probably do away with its college degree
> requirement without significantly watering down
> the quality of the designation, given the rigor of
> the program itself.
>
> I don’t have any idea how difficult the Canadian
> CFP exam process is, but in my opinion that is
> what is going to have by far the biggest effect on
> the perceived quality of the designation.
there is no college or university degree requirement in Canada.
rigor aside, an unlimited number of attempts available to candidates allow even the least well rounded individuals to learn basic concepts and apply them. the cfp material is nowhere near the cfa material in terms of prior knowledge needed to easily understand (i.e. stats, economics, financial math, accounting). i guarantee that many high school graduate with a c average could easily pass the cfp exam(s) in three or four attempts, especially if they are forced to take classes at some community college. essentially, if you know the difference between income, capital gains and dividend tax and have a decent knowledge of government benefits and rrsps, you WILL eventually pass if you have no knowledge of any other topics.
so the bottom line is, without a degree requirement, you’re allowing ‘uneducated’ individuals the chance to get a designation with possibly few basic math and writing skills. financial planning is pretty basic and most individuals who are financial planners live boring, life insurance selling lives. i find it useless for any cfa charterholder to attain the cfp as it adds absolutely no credibilty (in the shadow of the cfa) due to the reasons i’ve outlined above. …at least in Canada. let alone the ~$450 in annual dues for said designation that adds no value and is not transferable across any borders.
disclaimer: i’m not saying what you learn in the cfp is useless, i’m just saying that paying ~$20,000 over your lifetime for something of little value (i.e. knowledge is free, the cfp mark is not) is not worth it, especially when all the information fed to you in the program is on the CRA website. invest that $20,000 in outgoing annuity payments and add another year’s cash flow to your retirement.
 
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