continuing education for financial advisors

CONTINUING EDUCATION FOR FINANCIAL ADVISORS

The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) has mandated that all registered members must complete 60 hours of continuing education every two years.

These continued education classes can be spread across a broad range of subjects which the registered member is free to choose.

However, of the required 60 hours, no more than 15 may be spent within any single group of subjects.

This ensures that you will be required to learn a wide range of new information across several topics that the industry judges to be important.

WHAT SUBJECTS WILL YOU BE REQUIRED TO RECEIVE CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS IN?

As a registered member of NAPFA, you will be required to receive a minimum of 5 continuing education credits in each of the following core areas:

Income tax planning Retirement planning Employee benefits Investments Estate planning

Insurance and risk management

Communications Ethics of Financial

Planning (a required minimum of 2 hours in this area)

To complete the remaining 28 hours, you may choose to focus on additional subjects within the core areas. Or you may choose from approved elective courses.

YOUR REQUIRED CORE HOURS MUST BE CERTIFIED BY A RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY

Each of your required 32 core hours needs to be certified.

This certification can come from your state licensing board or from CFP, CFA, CPA, EA, CLE, ChFC, CLU, CIMA, or NAPFA.

This is to ensure that the continuing education you receive is fully supervised and licensed in accordance with the latest NAPFA-approved standards.

8 OF YOUR ELECTIVE HOURS CAN BE ACQUIRED BY READING, WRITING, OR TEACHING

Of your remaining 28 elective hours, 8 of them can be acquired by reading certain materials pre-approved by NAPFA.

Each book you read will count as 1 credit hour.

Each officially approved trade magazine you read will likewise count as 1 credit hour.

However, this will hold true only if you get a passing score on the associated quiz.

You can also earn up to 8 credit hours as the result of articles on NAPFA-approved subjects published by a fully independent third party.

In most cases, the third party in question will be a trade magazine that deals with industry-related subjects. Any article that is approved for publication will earn 2 credit hours.

It is also possible to earn up to 8 credit hours by teaching classes on certain NAPFA-approved subjects. You will receive 1 credit per hour of instruction.

The preferred subject matter for the classes you teach will preferably be consumer

or financial adviser-related.

WHAT DOCUMENTS SHOULD YOU SUBMIT IF YOU ARE AUDITED?

3% of all continuing education students will be audited at random at the end of every cycle.

If you are chosen for an audit, you will need one or more of the following documents: A certificate of

attendance or completion

A Continuing Education (CE) report that comes directly from the CFP Board

Receipts for registration fees, email registration or your course agenda

Seeking a new financial advisor position?

Speak with the experienced financial advisor recruiters of Willis Consulting Inc.

They can many top industry contacts and can help you land the position you want.

See open positions at http://www.willis-consulting.com/financial-advisor-jobs/

Los Angeles Office: Corporate Headquarters719 Yarmouth Road, Suite 203Palos Verdes Estates, CA 90274310-373-7400 PST

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