The second meeting this year of the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) took place in Washington DC in October. The IFP was represented at the full council meeting – the biggest one of the year, by chief executive Nick Cann and President Marlene Shalton FIFP, CFP^CM. There are now 25 countries affiliated to the FPSB and over 140,000 CFP^CM professionals worldwide.

Each time the group meets it becomes more closely aligned with the provision of CFP^CM certification and the maintaining of the Financial Planning standards around the world.

At these meetings, there is the opportunity for the IFP to work with the leaders of other affiliates to understand and share trends and developments within their countries. It is becoming easier to align with most aspects concerning Financial Planning, although the basis of remuneration in different countries is still poles apart.

However, the rest of the world is monitoring and following regulatory developments in the UK by the FSA, and the Retail Distribution Review in particular.

There have already been similar moves with the banning of commission in Australia and the Netherlands and India are on the way. The Indian situation is particularly interesting given the life offices’ decisions to invest heavily in Asia. It will be fascinating to see whether the other Asian regions follow this trend.

At the meeting delegates enjoyed presentations from Israel and Colombia. These countries are now ready to embrace Financial Planning and offer CFP certification their regions.

There was the launch of Financial Planet (www.financialplanet.org) which is the global blogging site for Financial Planning. Contributors from the UK already include Nick Cann, Marlene Shalton and Martin Bamford CFP^CM. Other contributors and comments would be most welcome too.

Part of the benefit of being an affiliate of the FPSB is the access to global research. Looking at the demographics around the world shows some really interesting trends. This information will help shape future programmes here in the UK. One particularly interesting statistic is that in China, 56 per cent of CFP professionals are now female and the average age is around 30. Clearly, this is a very different demographic to the UK.

As the financial turmoil in Europe continues, it is encouraging to note the European Affiliates of the FPSB have an alignment with their CFP certification programmes which will allow a far stronger message to be taken to key stakeholders. This is excellent news particularly as the UK will be hosting the FPSB Council meeting in London next year (15-19 October). This will be very exciting for the IFP as the UK approaches 2013 and a world post RDR.