Journal of Financial Planning: September 2020
All CFP® professionals are now required to adhere to the new CFP Board Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct, since enforcement began on June 30, 2020.
The new standards require that a CFP® professional must act as a fiduciary, and therefore, act in the best interests of the client at all times when providing financial advice to a client. This fiduciary standard includes a duty of loyalty, a duty of care, and a duty to follow client instructions.
To help FPA members meet the terms of these new standards, the FPA Member Advocacy Council (MAC), in partnership with Rochelle Truzzi from Hardin Compliance Consulting, created the FPA Compliance Toolkit for the New CFP® Standards. FPA member Paul Brahim, CFP®, AIFA®, managing director at Wealth Enhancement Group, was instrumental in making this much-needed resource available to FPA members.
The toolkit includes a model fiduciary engagement agreement, a model investment management agreement, a financial action plan, and essential information and documents. The documents in the toolkit are designed for FPA members to use as templates. For example, under the new CFP Board standards, CFP® professionals are expected to communicate in a manner and format that a client reasonably may be expected to understand. The model fiduciary engagement letter in the toolkit is designed to do just that.
FPA members can access the toolkit at financialplanningassociation.org/lead/advocacy/compliance-toolkit-new-cfp-standards.