The financial planning industry is taking steps towards becoming a recognized profession. But stronger oversight and enforcement mechanisms would need to be introduced to accommodate this shift to professionalism, a panel of experts said on Wednesday.

At the Financial Planning Standards Council’s Vision 2020 conference in Toronto, speakers debated the potential “professionalization” of financial planning.

Susan Wolburgh Jenah, president and CEO of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, said any regulated profession needs to have strong oversight and clear standards.

“There’s a difference between a profession and a regulated profession,” said Wolburgh Jenah. “If you want to be regulated, and seen to be complying with a consistent set of standards and obligations that exist within a framework that’s universally accepted, I think ensuring compliance with those standards is key, and having a method of dealing with those who don’t is also very key.”

In Quebec, the financial planning industry is already regulated to a greater extent than other provinces. For example, individuals who identify themselves as a financial planner are required to be certified by the Institut québécois de planification financère. Throughout the rest of Canada, there are no restrictions on who can identify themselves as a financial planner.

“In Quebec, this designation is the only once that can be used by anyone providing financial advice,” said Martin Dupras, chair of the IQPF, “which means that we have great control as to who can pretend they can give financial advice.”

This type of control is important in ensuring that consumers are receiving good advice from qualified sources, Dupras said. He is pushing for further progress in the professionalization of financial planning, including greater regulation of the financial planning process.

“It would make sense to have this recognized as a profession,” he said. “The public would be better served.”

Wolburgh Jenah said it’s critical to ensure that any changes to the regulation of financial planning are made with the best interests of consumers in mind.

“A lot of the debate, unfortunately, around this issue has really been more about turf protection instead of being about consumer protection,” she said. “I think it is important to keep the discussion focused not on what necessarily financial planners want, but rather, on what consumers need.”

In many ways, financial planning is already a distinct profession, according to Michael Lem, vice president at BMO Nesbitt Burns.

“I think financial planning is on that continuum towards becoming a fully respected profession the same way doctors and lawyers are considered to be professionals,” he said.

He argued that even if the industry is currently lacking the regulatory oversight necessary for it to be recognized as a regulated profession, industry practitioners should all act as professionals.

“Whether we’re a profession or whether we’re a regulated profession, I believe that as CFPs, we all have to be out there and believe that we are a profession and we have to tell people we are a profession, because perception is reality,” Lem said. “That’s how you become a profession, by abiding by certain guiding moral principles, and doing what’s right.”

IE