Proposed Revisions to Sanction Guidelines and Fitness Standards

On September 5, 2023, CFP Board requested comments on proposed revisions to its Sanction Guidelines and Fitness Standards for Candidates for CFP® Certification and Former CFP® Professionals Seeking Reinstatement (“Fitness Standards”) for a 90-day public comment period, which ended December 3, 2023.

CFP Board’s Commission on Sanctions and Fitness spent nearly two years developing recommendations to modify the Sanction Guidelines to benefit the public and CFP® professionals who uphold the high standards of certification, as well as to more closely align the Fitness Standards with the Sanction Guidelines.

• Read the announcement of the proposed revisions, with a summary of key recommendations
• Review the annotated version of proposed revised Sanction Guidelines
• Review the annotated version of proposed revised Fitness Standards

Comments and Survey Results

For this public comment period, CFP Board created a survey platform that contextualized the proposed revisions and enabled members of the public and CFP® professionals to submit their feedback on specific issues more effectively. The survey results and comments submitted to CFP Board through the survey form or by other means are available for review below, along with the results from polls conducted during in-person and online public forums held to review and discuss the proposed revisions.

• Survey Results
• Survey Open-ended Comments
• Public Forum Poll Results

Comment Letters:

• AARP
• Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund
• Chris Beard
• Better Markets
• Consumer Federation of America
• Consumer Reports
• V. Raymond Ferrara
• FPA of Greater Phoenix
• Abigail Hollar
• Edward Mora
• NAPFA
• S. Kyle Newell
• PIABA
• Richard Ryan
• SIFMA
• Anonymous Comments

Public Forums

During 5 CFP® Certificant Connection regional meetings which were held November 1-3, 2023, in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, Dan Moisand, CFP®, Chair of the Board of Directors, and Leo Rydzewski, CFP Board’s General Counsel, reviewed and discussed proposed changes to the Sanction Guidelines and Fitness Standards. Additionally, CFP Board held a virtual CFP® Certificant Connection on this topic on October 25, 2023.

Results from polling questions presented at each of these meetings are available for review.

VIEW NOW: Recorded Webinar on Proposed Revised Sanction Guidelines and Fitness Standards