Technical Corrections to CFP Board's
Standards of Professional Conduct

On March 30, 2009, the Board of Directors ("Board") of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. ("CFP Board") requested comments on proposed technical corrections to its Standards of Professional Conduct ("Standards"). The proposed technical corrections were intended to clarify ambiguities, eliminate redundancies and add terminology to achieve consistency between the Standards and other CFP Board publications.

CFP Board received 28 comments received during the 30-day comment period, which ended April 29, 2009. The comments are available for review at www.CFP.net/aboutus/Standards_Proposal_Comments.asp.

The comments were reviewed by CFP Board’s Ethics Task Force, which provided its recommendations to the Board. On July 16, 2009, the Board approved the recommended technical corrections, which are provided below in redlined format.

Download a PDF of CFP Board's Standards of Professional Conduct that contains the technical corrections as adopted in July 2009

Download a redlined version of CFP Board's Standards of Professional Conduct that identifies the technical corrections as adopted in July 2009

Background

CFP Board’s Standards – which include the Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Rules of Conduct, Financial Planning Practice Standards and Candidate Fitness Standards – establish standards of ethical conduct for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certificants. In 2007, the Board adopted extensive revisions to the Standards that are now in effect. As CFP Board staff prepared for implementation of the revised Standards, it identified some areas where technical corrections could clarify ambiguities and other areas that appeared inconsistent with other CFP Board publications.

In February 2009, the Board appointed three individuals to an Ethics Task Force to review technical corrections needed to the Standards. In March 2009, the Ethics Task Force presented to the Board its recommendation of proposed technical corrections, and the Board authorized release of the proposal for a period of public comment.

Technical Corrections

The purpose of the technical corrections is to clarify ambiguities, eliminate redundancies and add terminology to achieve consistency between the Standards and other CFP Board publications. Some of the technical corrections include:

• Amending the phrase “material elements of the financial planning process” to “material elements of financial planning” to better reflect the definition of “financial planning,” which involves the integration of the financial planning process and the financial planning subject areas;
• Aligning the “financial planning subject areas” in the Standards with the Financial Planning Topic List in CFP Board’s Guide to CFP® Certification;
• Adding to the Terminology section of the Standards a definition of “Candidate for CFP® certification”; and
• Adding the word “filed” in the Candidate Fitness Standards to clarify that one or more personal or business bankruptcies filed within the last five years is a presumptive bar to becoming certified.

Download an Overview of the Exposure Draft of Technical Corrections to CFP Board's Standards of Professional Conduct

Download a redlined Exposure Draft of CFP Board's Standards of Professional Conduct that identifies the technical corrections as proposed in March 2009

Read Comments on the Proposed Technical Corrections submitted by CFP® certificants and others.