The Institute of Advanced Financial Planners (IAFP) is expressing serious concerns about the CLU Institute’s new name, “The Institute for Advanced Financial Education”, or as its new website states, simply “The Institute”.

The IAFP says it has made its objections known, but to no avail. The IAFP says the CLU responded that it had no intention of causing confusion in the marketplace and had taken pains to avoid referring to the organization as the “IAFE”.

The IAFP is worried that many in the industry will refer to the rebranded Institute by the acronym IAFE.

It is also concerned with the Institute’s new new website address — www.iafe.ca. The IAFP’s website address is www.iafp.ca.

IAFP Executive Director Larry Colero asks, “In the absence of any other acronym, who’s going to use the full name every time? Do they really expect people to refer to them as ‘The Institute’ and not get confused with other Institutes for financial planners like the IAFP? Both of our organizations have overlapping membership targeting the same market. Both organizations grant professional designations and provide education for Canadian financial planners.”

The IAFP is a member-driven, not-for-profit organization established in 2002 to administer the Registered Financial Planner (R.F.P.) designation formerly administered by the Canadian Association of Financial Planners since 1987. Its mandate is to promote professionalism in financial planning and provide an added level of assurance to the public. Like the IAFP, the CLU Institute also administers designations, namely the CLU and RHU designations, for financial advisors and planners.

Colero continues, “The IAFP’s R.F.P. designation represents a much more complete standard for financial planning and more stringent qualification requirements, so you could say it’s more advanced. If they continue to infringe the IAFP’s trademark and position the CLU/RHU as more advanced than other designations, people will mistakenly believe that they represent the highest standard for financial planning. Not only will the IAFP suffer from this confusion, so will the Canadian public and the entire profession.”

The IAFP is no stranger to protecting and enforcing its trademark rights. In 2008, they take credit for playing a key role in preventing the official Canadian launch of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants, Inc. when the IAFP contended confusion would arise between the R.F.P. and RFC designations. In 2005, the IAFP took on the Ohio-based RFPI (Registered Financial Planners Institute) over unauthorized use of the R.F.P. trademark in Canada, and succeeded in causing the RFPI’s Canadian RFPs to stop using the designation.

IE