Certified Financial Planner

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) in the United States, and by 25 other organizations affiliated with Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB), 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. The information relates specifically to CFP certification in the United States. In the UK, the CFP licence is available to financial planners through membership of the Institute of Financial Planning.

For initial certification, an individual must meet four categories of requirements: education, examination, experience, and ethics.

The candidate must have a bachelor's degree (or higher), or its equivalent in any discipline, from an accredited college or university. A degree has been required since 2007. The bachelor's degree requirement may be completed after passing the CFP exam (within five years) and is not a requirement to be eligible to take the CFP Board Certification Examination. As a first step to the present CFP certification criteria, students must master a curriculum of approximately 100 topics on financial planning. The curriculum taught must be the equivalent of 18 semester credit hours (e.g. 6 courses). The topics cover major planning areas such as:

Individuals holding professional designations pre-approved by the CFP Board, which include attorneys, Certified Public Accountants (CPA), Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Chartered Accountants (CA), CWM Chartered Wealth Manager (GAFM), Chartered Life Underwriters (CLU), Chartered Financial Consultants (ChFC), and Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA)) are all entitled to register for and take the exam without having to complete the education requirements by using the CFP-board's "challenge" status. The bachelor's degree is not required for taking the examination, but it is required for initial certification.

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