Why are you chartered?

I put off becoming Chartered for many years as I did not think it would make any difference to the quality of the advice I was giving. One day I was having a chat with a fairly new client who said to me that they think having a Charted adviser would make them feel like they were being looked after by the best of the best. I thought to myself that I only need one or two exams to reach Chartered status so I might as well do it. I believe that you can get excellent advisers who are not Chartered and awful advisers who are Chartered. Therefore I do not think it is the qualification alone that makes the difference. It does show a commitment to learning and wanting to grow. I think it is more a perception angle from a clients point of view.

We have been a Chartered Financial Planning firm for nearly 15 years now. We aimed to be Chartered as soon as we could after launching the firm and it took us a few months to do this.

We wanted to be able to outwardly demonstrate that we went the extra mile as a firm. Simply being 'good enough' wasn't good enough!

There is still a lack of awareness of the Chartered brand but it is improving. We receive a lot of introductions from law firms and it assists in showing that we are a firm for whom quality, knowledge and expertise really matter.

I would recommend the path to Chartered as a continuing development of Financial Planning knowledge. One day, we would love to see a Degree Apprenticeship taking new joiners through to Chartered over a number of years, cementing our work as a profession.

If the future of our work is as sales organisations, then Chartered holds no value however, if it is to develop conscientious, holistic advisers then it is invaluable.