In December of 2015, the CFP Board announced that it was beginning a process to update its Standards of Professional Conduct for all CFP certificants, the first such update since the last set of changes took effect in the middle of 2008. And on this past June 20th, the CFP Board published proposed changes (including an expanded fiduciary duty) to its Standards of Conduct, with a public comment period that would last until August 21st.
And so as the CFP Board’s Public Comment period closes today, I have published here in full my own comment letter to the CFP Board. And as you will see in the Comment Letter, I am overall very supportive of the CFP Board advancing the fiduciary standard of care for CFP professionals, and view this as a positive step forward for the financial planning profession.
However, the CFP Board’s proposed changes do introduce numerous new questions and concerns, from key definitions that (in my humble opinion) still need to be clarified further, to new wrinkles in what does and does not constitute a fee-only advice relationship (and whether and to what extent certain types of compensation must be disclosed), to uncertainties about how CFP professionals are expected to navigate important conflicts of interest, and how CFP professionals should interpret the 29(!) instances where the CFP Board’s new standards are based on “reasonableness”… with no explanation of how “reasonable” is determined, and a non-public CFP Board Disciplinary and Ethics Commission that doesn’t even allow CFP professionals to rely on prior case histories for precedence.
Ultimately, I am hopeful that the CFP Board will end up moving forward with its proposed changes to expand the scope of fiduciary duty for CFP certificants, but only after publishing another round of the proposal for a second comment period, given the substantive nature of both the changes themselves, and the concerns that remain.
In the meantime, I hope you find this public comment letter helpful food for thought. And if you haven’t yet, remember that you too can submit your own Public Comment letter to the CFP Board by emailing Comments@CFPBoard.org – but today (August 21st) is the last day to submit!
source https://www.kitces.com/blog/comment-letter-cfp-board-proposed-code-of-ethics-fiduciary-standards-of-conduct/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comment-letter-cfp-board-proposed-code-of-ethics-fiduciary-standards-of-conduct
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