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Top 7 Financial Advisor Designations

financial advisor

“Mistakes are the best teachers. One does not learn from success. It is desirable to learn vicariously from other people’s failures, but  it gets much more firmly seared in when they are your own.”   – Mohnish Pabrai

This is the third post in a series of 3 about the  financial advisor profession, financial advisor designations, and titles of financial advisors. The past two:  Who is your financial advisor? and Top 8 titles used by financial advisors, discuss the different titles by which a financial advisor might be called. This post will detail 7 different  financial advisor designations which require additional training and certification to use them. According to the Wall Street Journal, there are over 208 financial advisor designations^1. However many of them are relatively unknown to the majority of the financial advisor community and the investing public. Also a number of them are for specializations which many not apply for most of the advisor’s day-to-day activities.

I have chosen 7 designations: Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Financial Analyst, Chartered Financial Consultant, Certified Fund Specialist, Certified Investment Management Analyst, Chartered Market Technician, and Certified Public Accountant for this post. A number of these designation are common and well-known designations, but generally are not used by the financial advisory profession. Get to know these designations. If you meet someone with one of these designation, don’t be afraid to ask what they mean.

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Top 8 Titles Used by Financial Advisors – Is Your Financial Advisor Registered?

 

financial advisors
 

This post is a continuation of the last post, Who is your Financial Advisor? In this post I will discuss some of the more common titles and licenses used in the finance-related profession. These are titles which professionals use to promote themselves. Some of these titles are given to them by their broker dealer, some are titles provided to them by obtaining a license and passing a test for proficiency, and some are self-designated.

Financial Advisors, their titles, and licenses

This is not an exhaustive list. There are many title professionals choose to call themselves. This post is only meant to discuss the more popular ones to help you navigate through all the terminology. Here is a list of the most common used titles for the finance-related profession:

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Who is Your Financial Advisor?

 

financial advisor
 

Professional titles are a great way to distinguish professionals from one another. You wouldn’t confuse Dr. John Smith with John Smith D.M.D., or Col. John Smith with Lt. John Smith. The financial advisory profession is much the same way. However it is a little more cryptic to the investing public as to what the different titles mean in the financial advisory profession due to their lack of uniformity. I hope to dispel some of this confusion right here.

Job “Title” vs Designation

Financial advisors use titles and designations to communicate to their clients and prospective clients who they are and what they do. While titles are a way to communicate to people what their role is, a designation is a way to show people that they have received additional education in certain areas. Unfortunately there is very little regulation or oversight in using different titles or designations from the industry regulators.  This has actually been one of the main causes for the lack of clarity among the investing public along with the rampant creation of designations for different specializations. The Wall Street Journal recently listed 208 designations for financial service professionals on their website.1

This list of 208 does not include designations which are internally given by companies to their brokers or advisors for passing an advanced education exam. For example, I received a Financial Planning Specialist (FPS) designation when I worked at Smith Barney. However, when I left the firm, I could no longer use the designation even though I passed the test. If you see the list, you will realize the runaway problem the financial services industry faces in further confusing the public. Some of these designations are monitored by FINRA and some are not.

How popular is your financial advisor?

As a professional financial advisor with over 15 years of experience, I have spent a lot of time over those years trying to craft the appropriate title to describe my profession, while at the same time trying to distinguish myself. One type of competition I have is with other people who have services which closely mirror my own. The other type of competition is from people who are from a different profession, but use the title of financial advisor. People from other professions who also use this title include: insurance salespeople, mortgage brokers, tax preparers, and more. This leads to a consumer who ends up being confused, and potentially does not get the help they are looking for.

Popular financial advisor designations

As an example of some of this research, I have illustrated the investing public’s levels of interest in the following four designations…

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