Future Outlook for Financial Planners

For the past decade, the financial planner profession had seen tremendous growth. Economic distress, fast paced lifestyle changes, unpredictable future demographics forecasts, unemployment and raising health care costs are some of the main reasons individuals gave up on conducting their personal financial planning and engage a professional advisor to assist them. The recent recession, in particular, had led more people to seek professional help with their finances, from managing retirement to risk protection and savings accounts to tax strategies and estate planning.

The global financial crisis, especially, had also resonated many mums and dads to look further into the future, fueling demand for planning services. This is what financial planning had been all about; PLANNING for the future to achieve certainty on our financial objectives!As most of us have a limited inflow of income, therefore, it is important that we don’t make mistakes in our key financial decisions that will be a setback to our financial objectives.With the demands of career and family today, dare me to ask how many of us actually have the discipline to keep detailed files and records of our finances and routinely monitor our investments? Financial planners are able to relieve you of all those administrative details and are experts at providing directions and solutions in your financial road map.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), www.bls.gov, they reported that through 2016, the profession of financial planners is expected to grow significantly faster that any other occupations and had been listed to be the top 10 growth occupation. The factors that are driving the demand of financial planners are:

- The increasing longevity of people today due to the advancement of medical evolution, resulting for the need of professional retirement planning to ensure sufficient asset accumulation.
- A solid plan to safe and accumulate for children education.
- The growing sophistication of financial products resulting mis-selling scandals and failure to meet investment targets, therefore, advisory is crucial to understand the different products available to suit different clients’ needs

Since the introduction of the Financial Adviser license by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2005, there are 17 licensed firms set up housing 169 licensed Financial Advisor Representatives nationwide as of December 2010. Year on year, I am witnessing the growth of licensed representatives transitioning from agents to provide professional advisory to clients. Globalization and the liberalization of financial services is one of the main factors causing this evolution. Clients today are better informed through technology and have higher expectation from their service providers (agents, bankers, brokers & financial planners). Instead of single need product sale, clients expects advisory to multiple needs which they wouldn’t mind paying a fee for. In that manner, financial planners can expect better remuneration from their professional expertise they offer. A survey from Money Magazine and CNN Money.com shows that a Financial Planner can earn $122,500 on average and ranks third in the top 10 best jobs list in America, considering growth, pay, stress level and other factors.

Every year, people spend more time planning for their vacations and holidays than planning for the future. But in reality, people’s lives can be more volatile than the stock market, whether it’s due to the uncertainty of work, family changes or divorces. And when that strikes, their financial planner will be their navigator!