This month, Jacksons Wealth Management managing director Pete Matthew announced he was dropping his certified financial planner designation. He is a beacon of the profession and for six years was the chairman of his local branch of the Institute of Financial Planning, which previously awarded the CFP.
I also dropped CFP designation some months ago. I served on the IFP membership committee and co-chaired the London branch for three years, right until it was taken over by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. Martin Bamford and several other planners I know have made the same decision or are on the verge of doing so. More have given up on their attempt to take the assessment as they watch it descend into irrelevance.
