‘Financial Planner’ Term Needs Regulation

* Mary Shapiro, NASD’s enforcement chief, once said when she was head of the SEC advisors division that “next to personal health, one’s financial health is the most important thing in a person’s life.”

In the now-proliferating adoption of the financial planning process by the broad financial services industry, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there needs to be a regulated use of the term “financial planner” [“Beware a ‘Friend’ Who Steers You to Variable Life Insurance Scheme,” Money Talk, June 4].

The public should be aware that anybody can call himself or herself a financial planner and therein lies a huge opportunity for abuse by some in the financial services industry.

Sadly, this may come about by the best intentions of an individual who wishes to practice financial planning but has not been adequately schooled in the many facets that encompass six-step financial planning nor in the efficacy of a product or solution in resolving a personal financial issue or goal.

The public should have a certain level of “expectation” when a purveyor of financial or financial-related products or services uses the term financial planner.

First and foremost, they must be able to expect that their interests, and not the planner’s, are being served first. Conflicts of interests and compensation must be fully disclosed.

DAVID BERGMANN, CFP

Marina del Rey

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