The CISI’s Paraplanner Conference in September has been converted from a physical to a virtual event due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The professional body, which runs the Certified Financial Planner designation, confirmed today that the physical event planned for London would be scrapped and instead a two-day virtual event would replace it.

CISI’s Paraplanner of the Year 2019 Kat Mock ACSI will be the keynote speaker at this year’s CISI Paraplanner Conference on 24 and 25 September.

She is a director of Unity Paraplanning in Bristol and will be talking about why and how she set up her own Paraplanning business.

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She will be joined over two days by 15 other speakers including international Paraplanners from the USA who will be sharing expertise at the CISI’s first online conference for Paraplanners in September.

The conference is free for members and will run over two half days. Six hours of structured CPD are available across two streams with delegates able to select between soft skills and technical sessions.

There will be breakout sessions to encourage networking and small group discussion and an opportunity to socialise while solving a virtual murder mystery and celebrating the announcement of the 2020 Paraplanner of the Year.

Speaker sessions include:

• Chris Hewitt, Technical Specialist, Financial Conduct Authority: FCA update, what lessons can be learned from DB transfers when considering retirement income advice
• Nick Bird, Executive Business Development Manager, Octopus: The Great Wealth Transfer: the increasing needs for wills and estate planning
• Mike Azlen, Founder and CEO, Carbon Cap: Climate Change, Investing for the future
• Martin Lines, Business Development Director, JUST: Who are you calling vulnerable?

Other important being topics covered in sessions include cashflow modelling and Perspectives on Paraplanning from across the Pond.

Christopher Morris, Chartered MCSI, CISI deputy head of Financial Planning said: “We are proud to produce an event that we feel combines the high quality CPD our members have come to expect with the best of online. We particularly look forward to welcoming and learning from Paraplanners from around the world. I’d like to thank our Paraplanner Interest Group Committee for their hard work in helping us shape the programme – not once, but twice.”

For details see CISI website.