How do ordinary Canadians view financial planners? For more than half of the public, there is a lot of misplaced faith in a set of national standards that doesn’t exist
Last January the Financial Planning Coalition did a survey with Leger Marketing on the consumer awareness of financial planning standards, with half of Canadians believing those rules were unified for industry professionals. But new poll results suggest even more labour under that misapprehension.
“The conversations that we’re seeing online now on our site reflects that,” says Kimberley Ney, vice president of communications for the Financial Planning Standards Council (FPSC). “If anything, more than half (of) people are surprised there is no one single body of oversight.”
While it hasn’t been an issue for most investors, it is interesting that the public felt that they had protection in place, she says.
“I’m really excited that we will get a few thousand people to participate in the poll, and it looks as if we’re on track for that,” says Ney, who will be segregating those poll responses that come from people who work in the financial sector.
“I’m really looking for the opinions of Canadians,” she says, “but it will be interesting to see if the opinions of people in the industry match those of the general public.”
The FPSC consumer website – launched at the end of last week – will run the poll until the end of October 31.
“We’ve had about 2,000 visits to the site already,” says Ney. “And about 300 responses to the poll, with a lot of social media chat about it.”
It isn’t the first poll taken by the FPSC, as they also worked with Leger last fall surveying some 1,000 Canadians (excluding Quebecers) on the impact of finances on their stress levels.
“The results from that were simply remarkable,” she says. “We found that 87% of Canadians wished they had made better financial decisions earlier in life. And I think this speaks to the younger generation, so we’ve focused a lot of our marketing and the campaign online, for that demographic, to offer them some kind of financial confidence through learning.”
“The conversations that we’re seeing online now on our site reflects that,” says Kimberley Ney, vice president of communications for the Financial Planning Standards Council (FPSC). “If anything, more than half (of) people are surprised there is no one single body of oversight.”
While it hasn’t been an issue for most investors, it is interesting that the public felt that they had protection in place, she says.
“I’m really excited that we will get a few thousand people to participate in the poll, and it looks as if we’re on track for that,” says Ney, who will be segregating those poll responses that come from people who work in the financial sector.
“I’m really looking for the opinions of Canadians,” she says, “but it will be interesting to see if the opinions of people in the industry match those of the general public.”
The FPSC consumer website – launched at the end of last week – will run the poll until the end of October 31.
“We’ve had about 2,000 visits to the site already,” says Ney. “And about 300 responses to the poll, with a lot of social media chat about it.”
It isn’t the first poll taken by the FPSC, as they also worked with Leger last fall surveying some 1,000 Canadians (excluding Quebecers) on the impact of finances on their stress levels.
“The results from that were simply remarkable,” she says. “We found that 87% of Canadians wished they had made better financial decisions earlier in life. And I think this speaks to the younger generation, so we’ve focused a lot of our marketing and the campaign online, for that demographic, to offer them some kind of financial confidence through learning.”
