
- Financial planners have a role to play in helping traditionally underserved consumers build a more secure future
- Technology and other transformations have streamlined consumer access to financial advice
- CFP certification helps financial planning practitioners serve consumers from all walks of life
Financial planning is vital for consumers at all income levels, including those in the traditionally underserved subprime space. In fact, as technology lowers barriers to access, opportunities abound for financial planners to transcend affordability and outreach challenges in their industry.
This shift has significant benefits. New-to-credit consumers need guidance for setting up future-focused strategies. Learning the basics can also help people experiencing a debt crisis or who need a fresh start apply budgeting and saving skills and other fundamentals to achieve their goals.
More financial planners need training and incentives to connect their clients with outside organizations and resources. Planners can connect consumers to public programs, nonprofit financial counselors, and banking products that are more affordable without adding risk.
Financial planning insights are relevant to all consumers.
When financial planners partner with nonprofits and community volunteer programs, they can help improve community financial literacy and awareness of financial planning options. The CFP process isn’t a panacea, but I’m not the only one who thinks this is good.
“Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of their income level, background, or education, had access to sound financial advice personalized to their life stage or financial objectives,” wrote Meagan Andrews and Hallie Spear of the World Economic Forum in a 2024 article announcing a WEF white paper on the future of financial advice. “Often, those with lower incomes would benefit the most from financial guidance, but they are also the least likely to afford it or know where to seek it out.”
Building Trust in a Changing Environment
The question for consumers is who they should trust. Sure, technology may lower barriers, as the World Economic Forum white paper attests, but that may result in more noise for consumers who feel confused over where to turn or whether anyone has their best interests at heart.
That’s what may cause the CFP designation to stand out more and more as barriers continue to recede. As the leading nonprofit associated with credentialing competent and ethical financial planners and expanding professional diversity, the CFP Board has a prominent role to play in the future transformation of the financial planning industry.
The CFP Board strives to include the excluded in several ways. First, it encourages practitioners to provide free or lower-cost services, partnering in 2022 with the Foundation for Financial Planning to make training and resources for incorporating pro bono work available to all CFP professionals.
The CFP Board encourages financial planning practitioners to engage in pro bono work.
It also encourages a more demographically and culturally diverse profession, more attuned to subprime issues, by partnering with the Financial Planning Association, the Academy of Financial Services, and Ameriprise Financial to host the Financial Planning Challenge. This competition aims to engage with the next generation of financial planners through undergraduate degree programs registered with the CFP Board.
The CFP Board partners with hundreds of regionally accredited colleges and universities to deliver the curriculum students need to master the coursework requirement. It prepares practitioners to provide financial planning and counseling services to consumers from all walks of life.
“Partnering with a CFP professional gives consumers confidence today and a more secure tomorrow,” said the CFP Board on its website.
2025 Exams Promise Record-Setting Participation
The CFP Board calls those hundreds of accredited colleges and universities Registered Programs. They’re the ones who manage, and present coursework produced by the Board that constitutes a component of the educational requirement to sit for the exam.
The other component is a bachelor’s degree (or higher) from an accredited college or university. Most students require a year to a year and a half to complete the coursework, which covers 70 Principal Knowledge Topics. It’s easy to find a Registered Program on the CFP Board website.
Programs may offer a classroom or blended experience, instructor-led online study, or online self-study and may target segments of the potential CFP exam audience. Professionals and those with a previous degree attainment may prefer a standalone approach that fits their lifestyle. Others may choose to tackle the curriculum as part of an accredited degree program.

Taking the exam will be an adventure — candidates will answer 170 multiple-choice questions in two 3-hour sessions on their exam day. The CFP Board offers three exam periods in 2025, each with a deadline for establishing the educational requirement (see chart).
Certification depends on an experience requirement that mandates thousands of hours of apprenticeship or professional experience before or after taking the exam. Planners lose their status if they fail to fulfill the experience requirement within five years of passing.
A total of 10,437 candidates took the CFP exam in 2024, the highest annual total ever. The pass rate was 62%, and 6% of candidates tested remotely. Beginning with the March exam, the CFP Board anticipates another crowd of applicants in 2025.
“Record-breaking CFP exam participation highlights the growing demand for CFP certification as the standard in financial planning,” said CFP Board CEO Kevin R. Keller, CAE, on the organization’s website. “This milestone reflects wide recognition of the value of competent, ethical financial advice.”
Why Certification Matters
The World Economic Forum white paper outlines six trends shaping financial advice:
- Changing demographics due to life expectancy increases and wealth transfer
- Greater need for a holistic approach to financial well-being
- Increased receptivity to digitally accessible, hyper-personalized advice
- Greater demand for transparent and flexible pricing
- The need to leverage technology to improve efficiency
- The increasing role of social media “finfluencers”
Those trends will impact all components of the financial planning and counseling marketplace, and financial planners aren’t suddenly going to deprioritize the investing public en masse. However, CFP certification puts those reaching out to credit-building consumers at a distinct advantage.
CFP certification signals practitioners have done the hard work to gain professional competency and an ethical foundation on which to base their actions. They’ve set themselves up with knowledge, tools, resources, and — most notably, perhaps — connections, to advance their careers and become more effective.
CFP certification distinguishes practitioners in an ever more crowded environment.
Perhaps the result will be more pro bono work that moves the needle for an organization and its clients.
Training enables practitioners to put the subprime puzzle pieces together to create growth opportunities that may not have existed in the past. Certification helps them reach more of those who, in the white paper’s terms, would benefit the most.
I don’t mind saying they deserve someone highly qualified to help them. “Anyone can call themselves a financial advisor,” the CFP Board’s website says. What you want are the credentials to back that up.
CFP certification signals to consumers that the advice they’re receiving comes from a place of support. If you’re considering a CFP designation or want to learn more about its impact on financial planning, explore information about CFP education requirements and exams here. For further insights into the implications of AI and other technologies and trends on the financial planning industry, consider a deep dive into the World Economic Forum white paper, “The Future of Financial Advice 2024,” available for free download here.