Why SEBI’s investment adviser regulation is great, but only the first step

I didn’t meet any Sakett there. I didn’t hear the state’s anthem, John Denver’s inspiring Rocky Mountain High on any radio station either. But hiking in the Colorado mountains, some three hours off the Mile High city of Denver, I could get a sense of Louis L’Amour’s outlaws, marshals, cattle drivers, drifters, no-accounts...all of who have been driven out by business tourists like myself and mansions of the wealthy. Still, the beauty of creeks, ridges and the sheer expanse of the Rockies takes your breath away.

But that was only a diversion. I was in Denver on a regulatory pilgrimage, to meet players and organisations that have made the city the financial planning capital of the world and its 53 square mile international airport, the country’s largest. The College of Financial Planning created the CFP certification in 1972; it was announcing its 100,000th graduate as I walked into its Greenwood Village building last month. In July 1985, the College later handed the CFP brand to Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards or CFP Board, which acts as an SRO (self-regulatory organisation), by creating and enforcing professional standards through education, examination, experience and ethics. Constitutionally, the CFP Board is not allowed to lobby, so I also met the Financial Planning Association.

While retaining the ownership of the brand in the US, the CFP Board sold the CFP brand to Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB), whose office is across the road on Broadway Suite, for all countries outside the US to develop the international CFP certification programme. It is through this channel that FPSB has leased out the brand to 20 countries across the world, including India, the 15th country to join up, in 2001. Currently, there are talks of FPSB taking charge of the brand for US planners as well. I met all the explorers of this youngest field in financial services and one which I believe will determine the future of intermediation business worldwide.

What I found most interesting was that their concerns about the profession are more or less the same as India’s — transparency, disclosures, standards, costs and commissions. In the context of Draft SEBI (Investment Advisers) Regulations, 2007, released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last week, this similarity of issues and concerns shows just how globalalised the regulatory framework around the intermediation industry in India and abroad have become, four in particular.

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