International News - 35,000 sign up for CFP in the US

The number of people licensed to use the CFP designation in the United States has broken the 35,000 barrier and set a new record, according to the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

The number of people licensed to use the CFP designation in the United States has broken the 35,000 barrier and set a new record, according to the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

"Last year we certified nearly 2,400 new CFP licensees. That varies a bit from year to year but last year was the highest number in the past five years," says president of the CFP board Robert Goss

A couple of weeks ago, 35,312 planners had been licensed under the CFP designation. The board expects about 5,000 more to sit the exam in 2000. Given the rate of suc-cessful applicants is 56 per cent, nearly 2,500 could win the CFP mark this year.

One reason for the surge in interest among planners, Goss says, is that clients have become aware of the designation and are inquiring about it.

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"They want an objective way to assess the ethical background of the planner," Goss says.

Of the current CFP licensees, nearly a quarter are women and nearly 90 per cent hold a bachelor's degree or higher while more than 80 per cent identify themselves as being in the practice of financial planning.

Last year, chair-elect of the International CFP Board, Patti Houlihan, told the CFP conference in Sydney that the number of planners gaining CFP accreditation interna-tionally was booming with more than 40,000 CFPs worldwide.

Houlihan says the CFP designation is also rapidly expanding into new countries with 40 trademark applications from 14 countries having been received. On top of these, the mark already has a presence in Europe, North America, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, New Zealand and the UK.

In Australia, the Financial Planning Association is running a program to ensure all practitioner members are carrying the CFP mark by 1 July 2003.

Failure to achieve the designation will result in planners having their membership status reduced, and at present 2200 planners, or a third of practitioner members, are licensed to carry the designation. Ano Morgans in Japan

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co is to open a retail business in Tokyo by May ac-cording to one of the group's managing directors.

Managing director of the group’s Japanese private client group Kenji Munemura says Morgan's new branch, which will mainly offer investment trusts, will mark the first small step of the company's entry into Japan's retail market. The company hopes to expand its retail network to 15 or 20 branches nationwide within three years.

Distribution buy

Zurich Financial Services’ UK life assurance subsidiary, Allied Dunbar Assurance, is to acquire the adviser network of Abbey Life, for £80 million ($202 million) in cash, plus an additional £20 million ($52 million) subject to performance.

Zurich says it will acquire the new business capability of Abbey Life, part of Lloyd's TSB, which consisted of a self-employed distribution force of 1,350 advisers and 165 sales managers, servicing more than a million clients.

Zurich says that when combined with the Allied Dunbar franchise network, the new advisers and managers will form the largest distribution network in the UK.

Merrills the bankers

Merrill Lynch & Co is taking advantage of recent changes in US banking laws to roll out new banking services.

Merrill (MER) brokerage executives also are developing the first new version of the firm's cash-management account, which broke ground 25 years ago by combining an interest-bearing account with a standard share trading account that held stocks and bonds.

Fidelity for the UK

Fidelity Investments is poised to make a concerted push into the UK managed funds business capitalising on the perceived misfortune of its competitors.

Fidelity has hired its first executive to focus exclusively on the expansion of the pen-sion fund business in the UK and continental Europe. David Stewart, currently head of Fidelity's emerging markets operation, is to be managing director of the pensions management business, starting in April.

The large US fund managers are relatively small in the UK. Fidelity says it hopes to pick up mandates from the big five fund managers that have suffered periods of poor performance, including P&D, Schroders, Deutsche Asset Management, Mercury and Gartmore.

Fidelity, which manages nearly a US$1,000bn worldwide, has already seen a flood of new business. In 1996, it had just £1 billion ($2.53 billion) under management in the UK. Last year, its total was £16 billion ($40.1 billion).

ther 1200 are set to gain the mark at the biannual examinations.