A good percentage of Indian youth dream about being a CA. Why won’t they be, as most chartered accountants earn in lakhs along with society’s respect. But what if we tell you there’s another professional course that can help you earn a similar kind of money, if not more. It’s called Certified Financial Planner (CFP) course.
While there are approx 2.5 lakhs CAs in India, the total number of CFPs in India is 2338. On top of that, only about half the students can successfully complete the course. All of this makes a career in Financial Planning a lucrative profession.
Thanks to the digital revolution, you can now prepare for CFP certification online. Renowned CFP prep providers can chalk out a clear path for you. But before you proceed on your journey to becoming a CFP, you should know the perks and benefits of it. By the end of this blog, you’ll know all the caveats of being a financial planner.
What is Financial Planning?
Financial planning is reviewing and advising every aspect of financial matters. For individuals and families, it’s a process of developing a customized roadmap that leads to financial well-being. Financial planning takes your income, assets & liabilities into account and defines an achievable path towards financial goals.
Certified Financial Planners recommend practical and efficient ways of managing our assets. They help individuals in all areas of personal finance including retirement, insurance, taxes, and investing. In the process, a successful CFP makes a fortune for himself.
Getting CFP certification in India is not a tough task. With help of IMS Proschool, an authorized learning partner of FPSB, you can have proper guidance to ace the CFP exam. In Proschool, you get the flexibility to choose any learning method including offline classroom, live virtual classroom, and self-paced video tutorials.
Objectives of Financial Planning
Financial planning is an essential part of managing finance for both individuals and organizations. Following are the key objectives of financial planning and what you expect your financial planner to look after.
- Estimating Capital Requirements: Financial planning begins with estimation of capital requirements. Financial planners help us estimate our future capital requirements based on your goals and other factors such as inflation. CFPs guide us build a realistic savings budget to achieve our goals.
- Maintaining the Risk Profile: Be it personal finance or a company’s operations, better managing of risks leads to prosperity. Naturally it is one of the primary responsibilities of certified financial planners. As a CFP, you’ll prepare effective strategies for your clients to counter all sorts of financial risks.
- Keeping Funds Handy During Need: Unlike popular conviction, financial planning is not all about investing. A good financial planning takes care of sudden requirements of funds and day-to-day expenses.
- Proper Utilization of Capital: People entrust financial planners with the utilization of funds. As a financial planner, your goal should be to fetch higher returns for your clients while keeping the risks as per clients’ risk appetite.
- Lowering Tax Liabilities: Financial planning is always done while keeping the taxes in mind. As India offers a handful of Income Tax benefits on investment in certain instruments, as a CFP, you’ll make the best out of it for your clients in terms of tax savings.
5 Benefits of Becoming a Certified Financial Planner (CFP)
Becoming a certified Financial Planner takes a great deal of determination and dedication. But at the end of the road, there is a remunerative career waiting for you. Remuneration not only in terms of money but also in other aspects of your life. Let’s discuss in detail.
Benefit 1: Earn Credibility for Planning Personal Finance
No matter how good you’re in managing personal finance, people will not trust you until you have something to show for it. A CFP certification is the thing that works like magic in this aspect. When people hear that only a few thousand CFPs are around in India and you’re one of them, people will start believing in your capabilities.
CFP certification is presented by the Financial Planning Standards Board of Colorado, USA. The CFP program is globally recognized by 27 countries and territories with more than 203,000 members worldwide. This speaks the volume of CFP certification
Benefit 2: Career in Top-tier Financial Organizations
CFP program prepares you to be a part of leading financial institutions. It enables you to kick-start your career in a mid-level position that offers handsome monetary benefits. Not only that, but you’ll also have the opportunity to climb the corporate ladder and become a senior executive in some years.
Global financial establishments like JP Morgan Chase, UBS, RBC, and HSBC recruit CFA certification holders in their financial planning wing. They offer a great place to work and grow as a financial planner taking care of personal finance for wealthy individuals.
Benefit 3: Increase Your Revenue Streams
A CFP certification not only opens up job opportunities but also helps you in getting direct clients. Yes, you heard it right as there are many CFP charterholders who have opened up firms by themselves and cater to individuals who are looking for a personal touch in personal finance.
If you know your role and excel at what you do, you’ll get ample freelancing opportunities in financial planning. In the process, you can make a living out of it if not kept as a side hustle. Individual CFP charterholders, who have word of mouth going for them, can earn lakhs.
Benefit 4: Reveals Everything about Finance to You
Certified Financial Planner certification is a symbol of excellence for personal financial planning. The course reveals all the intricate details of financial matters. After passing the certification, you’ll gain an expert-level knowledge of all financial things like taxation and investments.
All this financial knowledge you gain from CFP certification is not only beneficial for your clients but also benefits you in your own finance too. You can set a clear path for your personal finance and start a goal-based investment approach for your own wealth.
Benefit 5: Build a Network of Satisfied Clients
When you’re in this line of work for a long time, you’ll interact with a lot of people. People who are successful in their professional life. And when you help them out through your CFP learnings, you’ll make a satisfied client base who will come back to you every time for financial advice.
And when you get to build rapport with affluent people, you have the chance to ask for favors in a personal capacity. For example, you can ask for health advice from your doctor clients.
That’s enough of the CFP certification benefits. Now let us tell you about the most proficient CFP academy in India.
CFP Certification at Proschool
IMS Proschool is India’s leading CFP preparation provider. More than 400 CFPs have cleared the certification by enrolling in Proschool’s CFP course. In addition to CFP, Proschool offers several other professional certification guides. Proschool has also trained more than 16000 individuals of various different banking organizations in India.
Following are the perks of studying CFP with Proschool:
- Proschool offers all three mediums of learning i.e offline classes, online classes, and self-paced video lectures
- The study material of Proschool’s CFP course has remained an industry benchmark and is used by many other CFP aspirants. Our books are published by Tata Mcgrawhill, a renowned publishing house
- At IMS Proschool, all faculties are highly qualified with CFP certifications on their resume. So you’ll be in good hands.
- Proschool offers exam assistance and 100% placement assistance for anyone finishing any course irrespective of nature
- Training students since 1977, the IMS group is considered among the most trusted educational institutes
Final Thoughts
Getting a CFP is not as easy as it may seem at the first glance. Even if you pass the tests and possess all requirements, the CFP board takes the final decision of awarding you with CFP certification. So you have to have in-depth knowledge and be well prepared for the exam and the interview.
IMS Proschool is your best bet to make yourself worthy of the qualification in a short span of time. Combining your hard work with Proschool’s expert guidance, you’re bound to ace the CFP program at the first go. To know more, connect with Proschool today.