Paraplanning is “a really appealing” career but nobody knows about it outside of the financial services bubble, the former president of the Personal Finance Society has said.
Speaking to FTAdviser, Caroline Stuart, a paraplanner and now owner of outsourcing firm Sparrow Paraplanning and Solutions, is of the view that the industry needs to do a lot more to attract new members.
“Very few people are even aware of financial planning as a career, let alone a stream within financial planning,” Stuart said.
“I've been saying this for years. I love financial planning. We've got a great community. It's incredibly well qualified and well experienced with professional people looking after their clients. Why don't we just tell more people about it?”
In Stuart’s view, those in the profession need to take ownership of the looming crisis that is presented by the number of ageing planners.
“We're always talking about how there's going to be a crisis and how we're going to have this huge retirement wave.
“And you think, ‘well, what are you doing about it? Who have you spoken to?’,” she said.
Stuart believes those in the profession need to make better use of the opportunities to go into schools and universities and promote financial planning as a career.
“Both the CISI and the PFS, have got initiatives to go into school and promote, not just a career but money skills as well and fundamental life skills that people are going to need.
“So if you're one of the people who says ‘well, I don't really know what we're gonna do about it’, I say do something about it, take ownership of it,” Stuart said.
PFS era
Stuart herself was heavily involved in the Personal Finance Society for eight years and was the first paraplanner to become president of the industry body before her resignation at the beginning of this year.
Her resignation came during the public row between the PFS and its parent body the Chartered Insurance Institute after the CII attempted to take control of the PFS board and accused its members of governance failures.
Stuart fully refuted the allegations and said the CII had exponentially increased the pressure and stress placed on the PFS since “flooding” its board.
In the months since, Stuart remains unwilling to speak in detail about her resignation other than to say serving as the organisation’s president was “a huge honour”.
Having initially joined the PFS’s paraplanning panel in 2015, Stuart said even eight years ago paraplanning was a different world to what it is now.
A priority during her time at the PFS was providing a voice to those in the industry who were not working as financial planners specifically.
“I felt that as [paraplanners] were the second largest part of the membership, we needed to make sure we were supporting them and it wasn't just a one size fits all for members. The same can be said about compliance members of the PFS.
