CIFPs vows to protect planners’ interests

(June 16, 2004) Financial planners worried about the revolution in financial services can rest assured their interests will be safeguarded by the Canadian Institute of Financial Planners (CIFPs), according to managing director Keith Costello.

Speaking to the CIFPs annual general meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday, Costello said the CIFPs’ goal remains to become the primary lobbying voice for the financial planning community.

But if CIFPs seeks to become the voice of financial planners, the group faces an uphill struggle. With only about 1,400 members, the organization is sometimes seen as too small to have much influence. Costello says he is confident, however, that the group’s focused membership pool carries more respect than if the group cast a broader net.

“We’re the only member organization that is exclusively for financial planners,” he says, calling more inclusive membership strategies simply “self-preservation.”

“You can be sure that the CIFPs will lobby to protect the position of financial planners in any new regulatory regime,” said Costello. “Lobbying is constructive and it’s based upon detailed critical analysis. Other organizations resort to protests, sending cards in and they don’t offer detailed solutions.”

He called on securities regulators to put education at the forefront of any reforms, insisting such a regime be separate and independent from self regulating organizations.

“We’ve just completed an articulation agreement with the University of Athabasca and the University of Phoenix,” said Costello. “All those who are CIFPs members who’ve taken the educational program and written the CFP will get advanced standing in their business degree programs.”

Costello says there is another bonus for students of Canadian Institute of Financial Planning (CIFP) — CIFPs’ sister organization — educational programs. He claims CIFP-educated students have a first-time pass rate of about 80% when writing the CFP exam, whereas the national average — including CIFP students — is 62%.

CIFPs membership is presently concentrated in Ontario, but encourages planners to create local chapters across the country. The group will be targeting Edmonton, Mississauga and London, Ontario, for growth, and Costello believes the membership target of 5,000 in five years is “very achievable.”

Backing up its optimism, CIFPs announced the locations for its next three annual conferences, stopping first in Niagara Falls in 2005 before moving to Vancouver and Orlando in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Financially, CIFPs is currently running in the red to the tune of about $185,000, but Costello told the members in attendance he expects the organization to break even by year-end. Much of that debt is owed to related parties, including the CIFP and IFIC with “no specific terms of repayment,” according to a note in CIFPs financial statement.

CIFPs’ second annual national conference wraps up today in Ottawa.

Filed by Steven Lamb, Advisor.ca, steven.lamb@advisor.rogers.com