The Certified Financial Planner (CFP^®) designation is a professional certification mark for financial planners conferred by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards(CFP^® Board)^[1] in the United States, and by 25 other organizations affiliated with Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB),^[2] the international owner of the CFP^® mark outside of the United States.

To receive authorization to use the designation, the candidate must meet education, examination, experience and ethics requirements, and pay an ongoing certification fee.^[3]The information relates specifically to CFP® certification in the United States.^[4] In the UK, the CFP^® licence is available to financial planners through membership of the Institute of Financial Planning.^[5]

To earn the CFP^® Board designation, candidates in the United States must meet several requirements—the first of which is the educational requirement, which requires candidates to have a bachelor's degree (or higher), or its equivalent in any discipline, from an accredited college or university.^[6]  The bachelor's degree requirement in the United States may be completed after passing the CFP^® exam (within five years) and is also not a requirement to be eligible to take the CFP^® Board Certification Examination. [1] As a first step to the present CFP^® certification criteria, students must master a fairly rudimentary list of approximately 100 topics on financial planning.^[7] The curriculum taught must be the equivalent of 18 semester credit hours (e.g. 6 courses). The topics cover major planning areas such as:

• General Principles of Finance and Financial Planning
• Insurance Planning
• Employee Benefits Planning
• Investment and Securities Planning
• State and Federal Income Tax Planning
• Estate Tax, Gift Tax, and Transfer Tax Planning
• Asset Protection Planning
• Retirement Planning
• Estate Planning
• Financial planning and consulting

www.cfp.net

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia