A note of thanks goes out across the aisle to Registered Rep, which reminds us that requirements for the CFP 2-day exam will change starting next year - which may be why there's a run on people taking the exam. 

New 45-Hour Course.   The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards decided that CFP applicants must take a controversial 45-hour “capstone” course, starting next year, before being allowed to sit for the certification exam.  This would be on top of the current CFP requirement - a minimum of 225 hours of instruction covering a variety of topics, including investing, retirement planning, estate planning, income tax, insurance and employee benefits.  More than 200 schools and organizations provide such course work.  

Among other things, the new 45-hour Financial Plan Development Course will require students to develop an actual financial plan based on a set of facts about a fictional client.  Each student also will have to prepare and perform an oral presentation of the plan.

Prospective candidates who take the 2-day exam now will be grandfathered out of taking the new course.  Last month, for example, 2,559 applicants - 30% more than a year earlier - took the exam, and 19% more took it in March.  Only students who begin their instruction programs after the start of 2012 will have to complete the capstone.  “It is certainly difficult, because the student is going to be required to synthesize a lot of different content from across the curriculum,” says Dr. Charles Chaffin, who administers the registered programs for CFP. “They’re going to be thinking about how estate planning interacts with tax, and how tax may interact with investing. It’s kind of a different way of thinking, as opposed to having topics or subject areas in silos.” He likens the course to a student teaching program or a medical residency—“It is the closest thing we can do to imitate the profession in a learning environment.”

More than 63,000 advisors hold the CFP designation.  For further details, go to:   [Registered Rep, 8/17/11]