FPSU
®
Study Guide
Chapter 1: Financial Planning Process
To be used in conjunction with the money back guaranteed
Online FPSU
®
Exam Preparation Tools
available at
www.seewhylearning.com
SeeWhy Financial Learning
6
•
Changing family patterns
o
A decline in households consisting of married couples with children.
o
Where traditional families continue, they are not as able to support their
children and aging parents.
•
Low interest rate environment
Ethics and the Financial Planner
Financial planners being required to maintain the highest ethical standards should not
blur the fact that planners are entrepreneurs in business to generate a profit. An ethical
planner will always serve the client’s interest and his or her income is generated as a by-
product of providing that service.
The Code of Ethics for Financial Planners
The PFP
®
(offered by CSI
®
) is committed to the ethical behavior of its designation
holders and therefore has its own Code of Ethics. Likewise, the Financial Planners
Standards Council
®
(which offers the CFP
®
designation) has its own Code of Conduct,
which is discussed below.
The following 7 principles, as they appear in both the textbook and on the Financial
Planners Standards Council website, make up the Code of Ethics to which all CFP
®
professionals must adhere.
(Source:
http://www.fpsccanada.org/professionals/code_ethics)
These are important for CFP
®
professionals to know in great detail, which is why we
have chosen not to summarize or simplify them.
PRINCIPLE 1: INTEGRITY
A CFP professional shall always act with integrity.
PRINCIPLE 2: OBJECTIVITY
A CFP professional shall be objective in providing financial planning to clients.