When the Financial Planners and Investment Advisers Association (FPIAA) kicks off on April 1, it will do so without having secured the New Zealand licence for the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation.
When the Financial Planners and Investment Advisers Association (FPIAA) kicks off on April 1, it will do so without having secured the New Zealand licence for the prestigious Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation.
Currently the Association of Investment Advisers and Financial Planners (which is merging with the Insurance and Investment Advisers Association to form the FPIAA) holds the New Zealand licence for the CFP.
As part of the merger process it had sought approval from the US-based Certified Financial Planners Board of Standards, which owns the CFP marque, to transfer the licence from the IAFP to the FPIAA.
The Board of Standards last year laid down a set of conditions necessary for the transfer and set a deadline of April 1.
However, Board of Standards vice president and general counsel Dick Young says the board is waiting for all the conditions to be met.
IAFP chairman Denys Wright says the hold up is due to delays the IIAA is having sorting out licensing arrangement for use of the Chartered Life Underwriters (CLU) designation.
The CLU, like the CFP, is controlled out of the US, but is related to risk business rather than financial planning.
The IIAA has been using the designation for sometime in New Zealand, however it has no formal arrangement for use of the designation from America.
As part of the merger the CFP Board of Standards insisted this issue be formalised.
"Because of the difficulties being experienced the CFP board has extended the deadline to April 25," Wright says.
Wright and IIAA president David Milner say the matter is progressing well, and documents are being finalised for signing.
"Nobody sees any difficulty with that," Wright says.
Young says he has the authority to transfer the CFP licence if all the conditions are met by the prescribed deadline.
"If that doesn't happen.... (we will) then look at alternatives," he says. One of those is to put the matter before the next full board meeting of the CFP that is scheduled for the middle of May.
Meanwhile, the FPIAA is sending letters to all advisers in New Zealand inviting them to join the association.
Milner says there is a pool of between 1400 and 1600 advisers, and he hopes that the new association will have a membership of between 1250 and 1500.
The base membership fee will be $360 a year, which is the same as the fee charged by the IIAA. Members in financial planning college of the new association will have to an additional levy of about $200, while those in the insurance college will have no levy this year.
Milner says the difference is due to the fact that the IIAA had surplus funds that were transferred to the FPIAA.
When the Financial Planners and Investment Advisers Association (FPIAA) kicks off on April 1, it will do so without having secured the New Zealand licence for the prestigious Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation.