The Certified Financial Planning Board of Standards (CFP Board), the Financial Planning Association (FPA) and the National Association Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) have come together to form the Financial Planning Coalition in order to represent the financial planning industry in Congress' efforts to reform the financial services industry. The three organizations released a statement of understanding today outlining their goals for the coalition.

The first goal is ensuring that "financial planning services are delivered to the public with fiduciary accountability and transparency, serving the client's best interest first and always." The goals also include making sure that the services financial planners provide "are specifically regulated to distinguish and differentiate professionals who have met essential requirements to practice including examination, education, experience and ethics as modeled by the CFP certification." And lastly, the coalition would like to make it so that "the public can easily identify who is a financial planner" and hold them "subject to these standards."

The three organizations share two crucial missions: protecting the public and creating a true profession for financial planners," says Diahann Lassus, NAPFA chair. "Those principles have enabled us to reach a Statement of Understanding quickly and definitively."

Marilyn Capelli Dimitroff, chair of the CFP Board's board of directors, adds that recent upheaval in the markets have made it more important than ever for consumers to be able to identify, and trust, their financial advisors.

No further details were provided as to how the coalition plans to carry out these goals with the 111th Congress. A press conference with leaders of the three organizations is scheduled to be held Tuesday, Jan. 13 where further information is expected to be discussed.