The CFP Board announced Friday a proposal of new rules on the continuing education requirement for CFP certificants, including a jump from 30 required hours of CE every two years to 40 hours.
In addition, under the proposed rules the Board would, for the first time, provide CE credit for practice management education, granting up to four CE hours for practice management education or pro bono work.
The Board said in a statement that the higher number of required hours came about from a "comprehensive review" of the current CE required of CFPs by the Board's Council on Education, was "consistent with recommendations" from the Board's 2007 and 2008 Education Task Forces, and remained "consistent with or below similar requirements for established professions and comparable designations." In addition, the Board noted that the CE requirement for CFPs has remained "largely unchanged from its introduction in the 1990s."
When asked whether certificants had been involved in drafting the proposed rules, Michelle Warholic of the CFP Board pointed out that all the members of the Council on Education are CFP certificants. As for including practice management as an approved CE topic, Warholic, the Board's managing director for education, examinations and talent, said that "over the years, that probably has been the highest area where we received complaints and suggestions." She said the council examined how designations from other professions handled practice management as CE, and while those designations' practice management requirements "varied," the CFP Board added it to its list of approved topics in large measure because of the benefit of good practice management to end clients of CFPs.