Why We’re Going to China: FPA’s Moisand, Salmen Explain Their Goals, Part I

Richard Salmen: There was even a fairly good group of financial planners from China who attended the FPA annual conference in Boston in 2008.

AdvisorOne: Why is the FPA doing this? Do you see yourselves as ambassadors for the financial planning profession?

Salmen: Part of what we hope to accomplish is getting to know our fellow financial planners around the world on both the individual level and the professional organization level. What can we do as FPA to collaborate worldwide? The world's getting flatter all the time; as planners we're already serving clients with dual country residences or are working outside the country.

Moisand: A little twist is that while we're involved in a regulatory debate in this country, with many groups trying to define financial planning, but around the planet, financial planning already has standards and processes. The Chinese model may be different because they have different demographics and rules, but the [financial planning] process is the same—whether it's in Brazil, Indonesia, India or China—following the same process of helping families achieve their financial goals. The whole debate about what constitutes financial planning here, well, there's no debate [in other countries] about whether the profession is so important that it requires a separate regulatory body and that you need to be licensed to serve clients.

See Part II of the interview here.