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Why I Voted to Remove Fee Info From the CFP Board Website

By Susan John March 06, 2020 FinancialPlanning

When clients select a financial planner to guide them through some of life’s toughest decisions, the decision should not start with how that professional is paid.

This week, CFP Board sent word to CFP professionals that the compensation search field would be removed from the “Find a CFP Professional” search tool on Letsmakeaplan.org. This decision was made during my term as board chair in 2019. It stemmed from a conversation that began in the fall of 2018, continued into the winter board meeting and was adopted in a resolution that was passed the following spring.

I voted to remove the this from the website because our updated Code and Standards requires all CFP professionals to act as fiduciaries, regardless of their business model or compensation method.

As fiduciaries, all CFP professionals must provide their clients with detailed compensation information, which explains how clients pay for products and services and describes any additional costs they may incur, including product management fees, surrender charges and sales loads. CFP professionals must also disclose how they, their firm and any related parties are compensated for providing products and services.