Certified Financial Planner professionals in the UK are to offer consumers pro bono guidance on coping financially with the Coronavirus outbreak via a series of money guides.

The guides will be published by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment, the UK professional body for Certified Financial Planners.

The guides contain tips from the CISI’s CFP members on how to manage finances during the challenges of the Coronavirus outbreak.

They will be aimed at all consumers, including the employed, self-employed and small business owners.

The CISI CFP  money guides are available free for consumers to download from the CISI Wayfinder website on Cisi.org/c19fp and cisi.org/c19fpbusiness.

The idea to offer Financial Planning Week-style advice to the public came from an article produced by Will Robins, editor of trade magazine NMA, and a suggestion from one of the CISI’s CFP professionals.

Jacqueline Lockie, Chartered FCSI, CISI head of Financial Planning, said: “We’d like to thank Will, who raised the issue of our running a possible Emergency Financial Planning Week event, given the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Although our CFP community are very busy given their current client responsibilities, they jumped at the chance to support the sentiment, keen to offer their input for free to help build the money guides and support consumers.  My thanks also go to our Certified Financial Planner professionals for their input and support in creating these guides.”

The money guides and accompanying artwork for social media will also be made available as part of the UK CFP  toolkit and across the global CFP membership. There are 186,000 CFP professionals around the world and just under 1,000 in the UK.

The CISI runs an annual Financial Planning Week to promote the benefits of long-term Financial Planning. It includes CFP professionals offering pro bono Financial Planning sessions and a media campaign.