Financial planners across the UK are being encouraged now to sign up to this year’s Financial Planning Week #FPWUK, 5-11 October 2020.
The annual campaign, organised by the not-for-profit, professional body the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI), encourages consumers throughout the UK to book a free session with a financial planner during the week in October. These confidential meetings allow people to experience first-hand the life-changing guidance offered by the financial planning profession.
The CISI is encouraging the financial planning community, led by CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM professionals, to commit now to being involved by offering their time and expertise pro-bono. With the primary aim being to help people organise their finances to achieve specific life goals, the campaign seeks to help consumers build financial confidence, combat anxiety and stress about money and deal with life’s challenges around day-to-day financial decisions.
Financial planners who are CISI members and are wishing to sign up to CISI Financial Planning Week 2020 should go to cisi.org/registerfpweek
Financial planners throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are encouraged to:
- Join the campaign to help highlight the real benefits of financial planning
- Consider offering one-hour free consultation surgeries, via video call (Skype, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom) or over the phone for members of the public
- Take part in “Ask a Planner” online sessions and offer written responses to individuals’ queries
- Provide talks to local schools across the country to share the merits of the financial planning profession as a career
Jacqueline Lockie CFPTM, Chartered FCSI and CISI Head of Financial Planning said: “This year of Covid-19, unlike any other, has highlighted the fragility of all of our lives and how easy it can be for our personal foundations, including family, friends, jobs and finances, to be shaken to the core. Our Certified Financial Planners™ are qualified to offer the steadying hand, critical guidance and counsel which consumers throughout the country will be seeking. This year’s Financial Planning Week in particular is our financial planners’ opportunity to demonstrate to consumers during these free, personal finance one-to-one sessions the role of qualified financial planners in helping people from all walks of life, not only the wealthy, and of all ages, to think ahead and plan for their future.
“This is our chance to demonstrate our planners’ social responsibility credentials for all consumers to understand the real benefits having a financial plan can bring them.
“In addition, joining forces with 26 other countries under the Financial Planning Standards Board/IOSCO World Financial Planning Day on Wednesday 7 October 2020 will raise the profile of financial planning for consumers around the world.”
Martin Ruskin CFPTM, Chairman, CISI Financial Planning Forum said: “This year’s Financial Planning Week, in the shadow of Covid-19, has the potential to be exceptional in terms of the positive effect our pro bono, professional guidance can have on a consumer’s money management plans. People will have been through a huge shock emotionally and financially. Our Financial Planning Week theme this year focuses on the family, in all of its many guises and blends, and this national CISI campaign gives our financial planning community a chance to help those families who might not have or may never even consider seeking help. We see it as a chance to really make an impact and a difference to people’s lives and to help encourage the public to start thinking about how they can plan to move their finances forward.
“It is so easy for the CISI’s financial planners to get involved, by reposting and engaging with Financial Planning Week 2020 content on LinkedIn and Twitter, talk to financial planners (who are CISI members) who you know have not taken part before, volunteering to call any firms not planning on getting involved (planner to planner) and submitting case studies or articles, or curating existing content that you have created.”
CISI’s Financial Planning Week 5-11 October will also incorporate World Financial Planning Day 7 October, organised by the Financial Planning Standard Board (FPSB). Then CISI will also be participating in IOSCO’s World Investor Week in October. This is an annual global campaign promoted by IOSCO to raise awareness of the importance of investor education and protection, highlighting the various initiatives of securities regulators and other IOSCO members on six continents.
On 7 October, the global financial planning community will come together for World Financial Planning Day (#WFPD2020) to help raise awareness of the value of financial planning, of having a financial plan and of working with a competent and ethical financial planner who puts clients’ interests first.