From Belmore Financial to the FPSB
Fun fact, in case you didn’t know: The Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) spun off from the CFP Board in the early 2000s. Now, the FPSB owns and oversees the CFP certification everywhere outside of the U.S. Kate’s love of public speaking and traveling around the globe led her to take “an offer she couldn’t refuse” at FPSB, which required her to leave her own firm, Belmore Financial.
With the FPSB, Kate worked to build out the profession around the world. When you live in the United States, often thought of as a standard for financial planning, it’s easy to forget that there are hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide. We’re just a portion of that number in the U.S. With so many financial planners and firms all over the world, how does the profession look different within each country?
Culture and the evolution of financial planning
Kate brought up a great point about the evolution of financial planning worldwide. The United States has had quite a long history with the profession, and it’s continually evolving to this day, especially with the rise of fintech. Developing countries that are just entering the realm of financial advice and financial planning have the chance to learn from our history. And that’s exactly what some of those countries are doing: analyzing where the profession has been in the U.S., learning those lessons, and getting to where they want to be right now. “Leapfrogging,” as Kate called it.
With different languages, healthcare, tax systems, regulations, and views about money, how does a country’s culture impact financial planning? Kate mentioned that culture can be one of the most interesting aspects of the profession around the world. For example, culture might affect who clients or consumers want to listen to, whether it’s someone older or younger or male or female. A culture can encourage a willingness to talk about money or a tendency to keep it to yourself. Or, a culture can even make financial planning kind of obsolete if a country’s social nets provide financial security to the people.
However, most cultures will still find value in financial planning, especially as we spend more time on the life planning part of the profession. When you get more into the life planning side with clients, “that’s something that impacts every person on this planet regardless of their culture or socioeconomic status or what social safety nets they may have in their country,” Kate said. “People are still going to want to plan for vacations and make sure they aren’t spending more than they make and trying to figure out what their goals are.”
Where the profession is headed worldwide
With so much insight from her travels and a broader perspective on the profession, what does Kate think the future holds for financial planning? Kate is curious to see what happens in the fintech space, especially when technology branches out from cryptocurrencies and gets more into cash flow, projections, and other areas. She also wants to see how the life planning part of the profession grows.
Plus, in a lot of developing countries, people are just starting to become introduced to the concept of financial advice. It’ll be interesting to see how these new professionals work with cutting-edge technology, when they may not have had any access to it before. Kate likened it to her experience in Poland from a few years ago.
“Home telephones never existed in Poland. They went straight from no phones to everybody having mobile phones,” said Kate. “So if you think about that in terms of what that could mean for other areas of technology…it’s tremendous. And so many of these places that we wouldn’t necessarily think of are doing incredible things with technology.”
Kate had excellent insight and stories to share. Be sure to tune in and listen to the full episode!
What You’ll Learn
- How Kate began working for the Financial Planning Standards Board
- The challenges of consistency in standards worldwide
- How the profession is developing around the globe
- The impact of regulation in different countries
- How culture impacts financial planning
- Kate’s inspiration for her podcast, Innovating Advice
- Education and entering the profession
- Kate’s thoughts on the future of financial planning
Show Notes:
In this episode of YAFPNW, Hannah Moore, CFP®, and Kate Holmes, CFP®, discuss:
- NexGen (join us at the next FPA event!)
- The XY Planning Network
- CFP Board’s Public Awareness Campaign
- Kate’s Innovating Advice podcast
Want to follow Kate on social media? Check out her LinkedIn and Twitter at @Kate_Holmes, and don’t miss her globally focused podcast, Innovating Advice.