By: Helen Modly, CFP, CPWA
President-Elect FPA NCA
Earlier this year, Investment News reported that the CFP Board of Standards is
exploring whether or not they should become actual providers of Continuing
Education (CE) content as well as being the entity that sets the requirements
for CE, reviews and approves the content of programs and generally oversees the
providers of CE content.
The Board’s reasoning is that currently available CE
content is not of the caliber that the board desires and that this jeopardizes
the value of the CFP marks. In their view, the way to mitigate this is to
actually produce and sell CE content to members, thus becoming a competitor to
the 1,250 organizations and firms that are registered with the Board of
Standards as current CE content providers. Many in our industry, including FPA
National and NAPFA are concerned that this foray into the business of providing
CE content for a fee creates an unnecessary conflict of interest for the Board
of Standards.
Not only would they now be competing financially
against the very organizations that they are charged with overseeing, but they
would also be in the enviable competitive position of still reviewing and approving
the content of all the other providers while also developing their own content.
This is just asking for trouble down the road.
If the primary concern is really the quality of
commercially available CE programs, the Board could use their current authority
to simply raise the standards for approving content without competing against
those they regulate.
It leads one to wonder whether their exploration of
becoming a CE provider is more of a revenue enhancement issue than a real
concern over content standards. A recent member survey conducted by FPA
National confirmed that the majority of responders were against the Board
becoming a CE provider while still being the regulator of such providers.
The Board has indicated that it may make a final
decision this fall. If you have an opinion on this issue,
you can share it with the CFP Board of Standards using this link:
http://www.cfp.net/utility/contact-us.
Let them hear from you!
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