Charles R. Chaffin
CFP Board Financial Planning Competency Handbook
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Copyright © 2015 by Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Financial planning competency handbook.
CFP Board financial planning competency handbook / CFP Board. – Second Edition.
pages cm. – (Wiley finance series)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-119-09496-8 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-119-09500-2 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-119-09498-2 (ePub)
1. Financial planners. 2. Investment advisors. 3. Finance, Personal. 4. Financial planning industry. I. Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. II. Title.
HG179.5.F5663 2015
332.024 – dc23
Acknowledgments
A work of this magnitude could not come to fruition without the commitment of a large number of dedicated, accomplished individuals. First, I want to thank the 39 contributors, consisting of practitioners, researchers, and educators from within the profession and beyond, who shared their scholarship and practice experience for this book. I am grateful for their generosity and collaboration throughout this immense project. I suspect that as you read each chapter, you will witness the dedication of these individuals to both this book as well as the profession as a whole. I want to thank them for allowing me to pester them incessantly regarding deadlines, revisions, and content. They are a respected group of individuals with whom I am lucky to have had the pleasure to collaborate throughout this important project.
Thank you to Tula Batanchiev, Stacey Rivera, Laura Walsh, and all of my friends at John Wiley & Sons for their help throughout this process. Wiley continues to be a wonderful partner in this important endeavor, encouraging creative ideas and helping us expand the body of knowledge for this young yet dynamic profession.
I would like to thank the board of directors at CFP Board for their unwavering commitment to this project. I also would like to thank the CFP Board Education and Examinations staff for their years of hard work in helping develop and refine the certification requirements that help serve as the basis for this book. I am grateful to the Professional Standards, Marketing, and Public Relations departments for their generosity in supporting several key components of this project. Also, thank you to Lisa Braverman and Nancy Odenthal for their assistance in providing some vital support to this immense, year-long endeavor.
I am grateful to Kevin Keller, CEO of CFP Board, and Michele Warholic, CFP Board Managing Director – Examination, Education, and Talent, for their support and encouragement throughout each stage of the development of this book. CFP Board is a special place that cultivates creativity and innovation for a common purpose and I hope the CFP Board Financial Planning Competency Handbook is representative of that special environment.
In the end, I take responsibility for this work – this snapshot of the living, breathing body of knowledge for our profession. A body of knowledge that, similar to the profession it supports, continues to grow through the collaborative work of practitioners and academics. It is my hope that this book will not only expand the current thinking of practitioners and academics alike, but also serve as a time capsule for this profession, illustrating how far we as a discipline, as a profession, will grow in the years and decades to come.
About the Book
CFP Board is pleased to develop this important work that outlines the knowledge, actions, and contexts associated with financial planning. This book represents the advancement in the profession by practitioners, educators, and researchers in moving toward a universal body of knowledge for the discipline as a whole. This publication is not meant to replace any existing textbook or provide any specific examination preparation, but rather to further the theoretical knowledge base of our growing discipline.
This book serves the entire financial planning profession, including students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners in financial planning and related professions. The book was designed to treat theory and practice not as binary functions, but as one entity, where content was defined but also applied, both within the learning environment and in practice. Part One outlines the 78 topics required to meet the CFP Board Education requirement. Each topic is defined specifically with regard to financial planning and presented in the form of student-centered Learning Objectives. These objectives indicate what the student should be able to do relative to a given concept. The