CFP Board floats changes to competency standards

The CFP Board, the credential-granting body that grants the Certified Financial Planner certification for financial professionals, is inviting public comments on a slew of proposals to revamp its competency standards.

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The propoaws changes, which follow an 18-month review by a 15-member commission, are aimed at modernizing the education, experience, examination, and continuing education standards for CFPs, the board said in a statement earlier this week.

“Comments and feedback play a pivotal role in shaping the Board of Directors’ decisions and guiding our next steps,” said Kevin Keller, CEO of the CFP Board said Tuesday. “We strongly encourage everyone to share their perspective during this critical comment period.”

Proposed updates

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Among other changes intended to strengthen and add flexibility to the certification process, the CFP board has floated a change to its CE standards, raising the biennial requirement from 30 hours to 40 hours. The CFP Board is also looking to mandate specific topics for continuing education in light of new laws or regulations that may impact the profession.

Pro bono work could count for up to 10 hours of continuing education under the changes, with one credit hour awarded for every three hours of volunteer service. Under another proposed change, up to 10 hours of excess CE could be carried over to the next two-year certification period.

The CFP Board is also looking at adding the Certified Investment Management Analyst credential to the list of accepted qualifications to streamline the education requirement for the CFP mark.

New standards for experience

The CFP Board is also reconsidering how experience counts toward CFP certification.

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One of those involves a possibly more demanding “standard pathway” for CFP certification, which allows CFP aspirants to count 6,000 hours of experience in financial planning work toward earning the mark. While the CFP board currently requires those hours to go to at least one of the seven elements of the planning process, it’s looking to raise that bar to three areas.

Experience standards could be relaxed in other ways too. The CFP Board is proposing to count up to 500 hours of pro bono work toward the 6,000-hour requirement, while another proposal would extend the lookback period for relevant work experience from 10 years to 15 years.

Earlier this year in May, the CFP Board expanded its partnership with the Externship, a virtual training program for would-be financial planners, ramping up the number of experience hours they could be credited for under the standard pathway. Another 

A call for feedback

The CFP Board has scheduled a webinar going through the changes on January 23, 2025, while the deadline to submit comments online is on February 28. The board’s final decisions on the changes, which could consider other relevant data, are expected in November 2025.

“We recognize that changes to the Competency Standards can significantly shape the future of the profession,” Keller said. “That’s why input from practitioners, candidates, firms, membership organizations and the public is so important.”