ADVISOR | September 2024
The success of financial consultancy in Italy is due to the professionals who are the real pivots of this sector.
One of the secrets of the success of this profession is the ability to combine the function and support of the company (in our case the network/principal), typical of all organized business communities, with a parallel entrepreneurial drive that arises at an individual level from the individual professional (the financial advisor).
This drive leads financial advisors to always question themselves by investing on a personal level in their work and in continuous training as only the best freelancers (doctors, lawyers, architects) know and can do.
Therefore, the value of skills certification takes on an increasing value for financial advisors and on average higher than that attributed by other professionals.
The numbers of EFPA (European Financial Advisor Association) tell us this, which has seen certified professionals grow exponentially in recent years.
EFPA has been able to seize all the market opportunities before and better than others, enhancing the three standard certifications (in ascending order EIP, EFA and EFP) but also expanding the offer to specialist ones.
The specialist certifications embrace all the most current and relevant areas: ESG (ESG Advisor and Expert), protection (European Insurance Specialist), pension (EPS), financial planning and portfolio analysis (PPF and TAP), estate and succession planning (PPS), private markets (PMK), unconventional investments (UIS), economics and finance (EFD), behavioral finance (FBA) and Artificial Intelligence (EAI).
The extraordinary results achieved by EFPA in terms of increase in certified professionals, which went from 5,758 in 2017 to the current 11,569 (as of 8/1/24), are a clear testimony to the value that savings professionals (financial and banking consultants) give to certification of skills.
Further confirmation of the increased value of skills certification comes from the comparison of the results of research conducted by FINER in 2024 with the data of a similar research conducted by the undersigned in 2011 for EFPA.
Among customers, the percentage of those who consider it very important that their financial advisor is certified according to standards recognized at European level has increased from 41% in 2011 to 66% in 2024.
In 2011, 23% of non-EFPA certified professionals said they were considering becoming certified, in 2024 this has grown to 34%.
Among EFPA certified professionals in 2011 only 9% believed that certification was also very important for their clients, in 2024 it will be 19%.
In 2011, only 18% of certified professionals declared that they would communicate to their clients that they would have achieved EFPA certification in 2024, up to 36%.
Also in 2011, 61% of certified professionals believed that EFPA certification was very important for their profession, in 2024 this will reach 85%.
It is very nice to see that more and more financial advisors are placing continuous training and the consequent certification of the skills acquired at the center of their agenda.
Investing in yourself and your profession is a guarantee of an increasingly satisfying future for consultants and their clients.
Nicola Ronchetti