Financial Planners Standards Council Releases the Latest Statistics on Financial Planning Professionals

September 4, 2002, Toronto - Financial Planners Standards Council (FPSC) is now positioned to track the changing shape and landscape of the emerging financial planning profession.

Based on responses to increasingly probing questions asked of renewing and new CFP® licensees, the planner profile, viewable on the FPSC website (www.cfp-ca.org), offers an historical perspective on basic information such as age, gender and location, as well as new insights to the practice profiles of Canada's largest identifiable body of financial planning professionals - CFP® licensees.

"Each year, we ask CFP licensees more questions, and the information we have gathered during this last licence renewal, when compared with that of former years, begins to reveal patterns and trends," says FPSC Vice President of Communications & Corporate Relations Ann Bowman. "But it is a very new and evolving profession. Getting the benchmarks right is our major focus, and with the cooperation of our licensees, we will."

Some of the trends tracked so far:

* More women are earning the designation - 2.64 per cent increase in the past two years.
* More CFP licensees hold educational degrees - up 27.2 per cent in three years.
* In the past two years, there was a 2.7 per cent decrease in planners between the ages of 25 and 49 while the number of planners 50 and over increased by 2.35 per cent.

And some new insights into the practices of planners:

* 35 per cent of planners have more than 300 clients.
* 74 per cent of clients have a net worth of less than $500,000.
* 35 per cent of planners earn in excess of $100,000.

More statistics on CFP licensees and information gathered from other FPSC surveys are available on www.cfp-ca.org.

Financial Planners Standards Council is the not-for-profit organization dedicated to benefiting Canadians and the financial planning profession by establishing and enforcing education and ethics standards for financial planners who earn the Certified Financial Planner designation. There are currently more than 14,000 planners licensed to use the CFP marks in Canada, and approximately 70,000 CFP professionals in 17 countries around the world.

-30-

For more information contact:
Ann Bowman
416.593.8587 x 225 or abowman@cfp-ca.org