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Soulin Financial Education

Certified Financial Planner

The Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation is a certification mark for financial planners conferred by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. To receive authorization to use the designation, the candidate must meet education, examination, experience and ethics requirements, and pay an ongoing certification fee.

Education Requirements

To earn a CFP designation, candidates must meet several requirements -- the first of which is the "educational requirement." After March 2007, at minimum, a college education and bachelor's degree is required from an accredited U.S. college or university. As a first step to the present CFP certification criteria, students must master a list of 89 topics on integrated financial planning. 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

To master "The Education Requirement," students are now required to have at least a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited U.S. college or university plus additional course training in the above listed topic areas in order to meet the first requirement to sit for the 10 hour examination. A few exceptions to the education requirement exist for a limited number of professionals, including licensed attorneys (i.e., juries doctor holders who are duly licensed with their state bar association), certified public accountants (CPAs), chartered financial analysts (CFA charter holders), and persons holding doctoral degrees in business, finance, accounting, or economics.

International degrees may be substituted for a U.S. degree if they receive equivalency from a third-party organization.

CFP Certification Examination

The CFP Certification Examination is a 10-hour multiple choice exam, divided into one four-hour session (Friday afternoon) and two three-hour sessions (Saturday). The exam includes three major case problems and is designed to assess the student's ability to apply his or her knowledge of the aforementioned areas to financial planning situations. The exam was set as a requirement in 1993 and at that time CFPs were grandfathered without having to pass this exam.

Individuals holding professional designations pre-approved by the CFP Board (like PhDs in business and economics, attorneys, Certified Public Accountants (CPA), Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Chartered Financial Consultants (ChFCs), Chartered Accountants (CA), Chartered Wealth Managers (AAFM) ), and Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) are entitled to register for and take the exam without having to complete the education requirements by using the CFP-board's challenge status.

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