There was a time when the professional body sector was reassuringly dull. An oasis of calm, grey in a sea of volatile and excitable financial services.
That seems to be changing quite rapidly if the examples we’ve seen this week are anything to go by.
In business terms, the professional body sector is getting just a little sexy.
The LIBF is perhaps the smallest professional body as far as Financial Planners and advisers are concerned but it has a growing following and is used by Quilter and others to power training and professional qualifications. It also provides the popular Cemap mortgage qualification and a growing number of qualifications for financial advisers and Paraplanners. It also offers Chartered status.
IU, which has not disclosed how much it has paid for the LIBF, has more than 100,000 students and is keen to expand its international and digital footprint. Expect new investment in the LIBF which is keen to build a bigger base in the financial advice sector.
We also reported this week that the CISI had waived its rule that Chartered Planners from another body wishing to transfer (or join) the CISI were no longer required to do a year’s CPD first. The removal of this barrier makes it much easier for Financial Planners who want to retain Chartered status to move from one body to another without losing their Chartered designation for 12 months.
Of course, the Personal Finance Society and parent company the Chartered Insurance Institute are still trying to resolve their conflict but they must be keeping an eye on these developments which are some of the most significant in the professional sector for some years.
The other factor which is driving change things is the important international roles that the UK professional bodies are now playing. They are no longer focused just on a few UK professionals wanting to move up the ladder. They are truly global organisations now with, collectively, hundreds of thousands of members.
The CISI now has as many members overseas as it does in the UK. The CII / PFS has a global reach and STEP (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) is as happy running conferences in Miami as it is in London.
London’s reputation as a trusted and outward-looking location for professional standards and designations has worldwide respect and is opening doors all over the globe.
It could well be that the future for the professional bodies is within much larger international corporations, reaching students on every continent. The desire to become a financial professional is only going to increase.
The LIBF deal is unlikely to be the last.
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Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and has worked as a journalist and editor for over three decades.
