University of Financial Planning?
08/03/2010
As part of my duties as Vice Chairman of the Regional Personal Finance Society I had a meeting with a university lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire today. I was a little surprised that somebody who worked as a senior lecturer in the business studies department did not really appreciate the difference between financial planning and financial advice. I suppose that being involved in this profession for so many years, I got to believe that the message had been carried across into the general awareness, but this seems not to be the case.
I explained to her that as a profession we had moved from being financial advisers who were generally tied and worked for large insurance companies or banks to independent financial advisers. She agreed most people now appreciate that independent financial advisers have the ability to advise across a much wider range of products. She did not however understand the movement towards financial planning.
I explained that financial planning was a strategic process examining questions like “what if” and “when”. For example, “what if I am unable to work due to illness?” or When will be able to stop working? Financial advice is more tactical and covers issues such as “which products are the most suitable to help me to meet my objectives?”
She did also not appreciate that financial planning is not a regulated activity itself and only becomes regulated as and when advice is given regarding a regulated product, such as a pension or investment. She did not understand that a financial planner could effectively give generic financial planning advice without any form of regulation at all. In other words anybody could advise you to take out a pension, but the moment they say you should open a Legal and General pension they are only then giving regulated advice.
On further explaining the role of life planning within the financial planning process she began to appreciate the differences involved and how people would benefit from going through this financial planning process.
We went on to discuss how the university tries to help reach students move from the point of further education into the workplace and how much students would benefit from an understanding of personal financial planning early in their working lives. We agreed it might be a good idea for the University to contact me with regards to doing some talks to students who were about to finish their education, to help put them on the right road with regards to their personal finances.
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
Posted in Financial Planning
Leave a Reply
Our Mission: Growing happiness and financial peace of mind for all our clients and team |
 |
Our client aim: To ensure you never have to worry about your money again |
