FPI uncompromising in its approach to producing qualified financial planners

This is according to Godfrey Nti, CEO of the Financial Planning Institute (FPI), who said he is satisfied with the path the FPI is on and believes the institute is well on its way to helping reshape the financial planning profession in South Africa: "Of paramount importance to the FPI is maintaining the highest levels of professionalism amongst our member base. If financial planning is to be an integral part in the lives of most South Africans, it stands to reason that we should always have the interest of consumers at heart.

"While our aim is to improve membership levels as part of ensuring that there's a wider spread of well-qualified and accredited financial planners, the quality of advice takes precedence. To date the FPI has close to 6000 financial planners registered as valid members, and we aim to have increased this figure to 12,000 by 2015," said Nti. Asked whether 12,000 members is a realistic and attainable figure, he said the FPI is confident of increasing its membership levels because they have seen numbers grow steadily over the years and various measures are in place to meet this goal.

Protecting the consumer's right to professional service

According to Nti, focus will be devoted to increasing member numbers in provinces such as Northern Cape, North West and Limpopo. There are 243 financial planners across these three provinces while in Gauteng there are about 3000 members, followed by the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal - these provinces have 1602 and 889 members respectively.

"When the 2015 strategy was finalised in the middle of 2012, a new accreditation system was highlighted as one of the key pillars of the FPI's long-term vision. Central to this was the introduction of the new, financial services advisor (FSA) professional designation while the associate financial planner (AFP), and registered financial planner (RFP) designations will be phased out over the next six years to allow for smooth transition," explained Nti.

The FPI recently terminated 300 of the institute's members, as they did not meet the re-certification requirements within the stipulated timeframe; this is in line with regulations in the institute's membership policy. "I'm proud to say that at the present moment the FPI boasts a membership base of financial planners that have met the stipulated re-certification requirement. The FPI's aim is to ensure that we put out only the best qualified financial planners in the market place as the consumer has the right to access the highest level of professional service," concluded Nti.

For more information, go to www.fpi.co.za.