Find a Financial Planner
CFP® certification is the only globally recognised mark of professionalism for financial planners.When seeking expert and trusted financial planning advice, look for a financial planner who is a CFP professional.
Financial planning is the process of developing strategies to help you manage your financial situation to meet your life goals. Everyone can benefit from using the financial planning process to understand his or her current financial situation or plan for the future.
What is a CFP Professional?
The CFP Marks identify practitioners who are dedicated to a high level of professionalism in the delivery of personal financial advice to clients. Currently in Australia, anyone can call himself or herself a financial adviser but only those who fulfil initial and ongoing certification requirements can use the CFP certification mark.
You can consult a CFP professional knowing that they are competent, ethical and are experienced financial planners, who follow a well-defined process that puts their client's interests and needs first when providing financial planning advice.
Rigorous requirements for the award of certification have meant the CFP Mark has quickly become the highest standard in financial planning world wide. There are over 126,000 CFP professionals worldwide, and 5,700 in Australia.
Benefits of seeing a CFP Professional
Ethical, trained and qualified - Not every financial planner meets the same standards. Those who have achieved CFP certification have fulfilled specific competency, ethics and practice requirements and have demonstrated the professional abilities, skills, knowledge and commitment necessary to competently help you plan for your future.
Work with professionals - CFP professionals follow a set of professional practice standards and rely on the financial planning process to help you achieve your financial goals.
Security - Because CFP certification is recognised and supported by professional financial planning organisations around the world, you can feel secure knowing that only those who meet initial and ongoing CFP certification requirements have the right to use the CFP Marks.
If you would like to check if a financial planner is a member of the FPA and a CFP professional, you can visit the FPA’s ‘Find a planner’ service below, or phone the FPA on 1300 626 393.
Click here for a guide to getting the best advice.
Meet our CFP Professional Ambassador - Rodney Lavin CFP®
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Rodney Lavin is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, and has been awarded as the FPA’s first ever CFP® Professional Ambassador. Rodney, who was selected from a group of 90 CFP professionals, will represent the FPA and promote the CFP Mark and the benefits of advice to consumers.
Rodney believes ongoing education and training were essential for all financial planners to be equipped to solve clients’ complex needs.
The CFP Mark is not well understood or recognised by consumers. The FPA has chosen Rodney as an ambassador to help promote the CFP Marks, explain what it means and the value that consumers can receive from working with a CFP professional.
“As with any profession, whether it is the medical, legal or accounting, the financial planning profession plays a pivotal role in the lives of our clients.
“If I was a client I would hope my financial planner was prepared and willing to have a personal commitment to become a leader in their own profession and strive to become a CFP professional. It should be a standard that all financial planners want to achieve.
“In my role as CFP Professional Ambassador, I hope to play a role in improving the status of the CFP professional brand in this country. I want to increase the desire for planners to want to become a CFP professional and for consumers to want to engage the services of a financial planner who is a CFP professional, or is at least committed to undertake the studies to become one.
Rodney has been working in the Financial Planning Industry for the past 23 years and has been a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional for the last 13 years. As an active member of the financial planning profession, Rodney has been the Chairman of the Gippsland Chapter of the FPA for the past four years.
Before establishing his own practice (Lavin and Associates, Licensee Financial Wisdom), Rodney worked for 14 years at one of Australia’s largest banks. He headed the Gippsland Financial Planning team and mentored many young financial planners and promoted the importance of CFP certification.
Rodney also contributes significantly to his local community, he was an elected Councillor for the City of Berwick from 1989 to 1992 and the City of Berwick named a reserve, ‘The Rodney Lavin Reserve’, for his service to the city.
Recently, Rodney was invited to join a Parliamentary delegation to Washington DC and New York City.