The Future of Financial Planning

The science of financial planning is relatively new. While pinpointing the career’s starting point is difficult, I’d put it somewhere in the neighborhood of 1969 and the Institute of Consumer Financial Education. Dunton had a vision of educating the public on financial planning techniques. His initiatives led to the creation of the College for Financial Planning. The College distributes the Certified Financial Planner designation to students who complete a series of modules. The Certified Financial Planner designation is now a standard of excellence in the industry. Dunton focused the late part of his career on educating financial professionals on how to teach financial planning.

This is a difficult profession to standardize as many of the factors which affect financial planning are variable and involve risks associated with the open market system. The classic example is investing- an aspect of financial planning which has as many theories as it has products. The tax aspect is variable as well since the IRS alters the tax code all the time. Nonetheless, Dunton went on to standardize the process into five segments: Insurance, Investments, Taxes, Retirement, and Estate Planning. With a background in these five areas, an advisor should have the ability to not just place a client into an investment product, but help advise them on the various aspects of the planning process as well.