Basel-based Commission to promote financial field more aggressively, create “twenty-minute designation”

NEW YORK – The Centre for International Finance Certification (CIFC) made a follow-up announcement to its decision last week to enact legislation changing the way members of the accounting and legal professions present their credentials. Commenting on the story is Representative Steven Bacon (D-NY), who has been among the legislation’s most ardent and active proponents.

“I think we all know that Dodd-Frank is making it a smaller world for those who are doing wrong,” Bacon said. “Now we have something that rewards those on the other side of the coin – those financial advisors who are taking the high road,” he said.

Bacon, himself a former institutional trader and private wealth advisor with the storied white-shoe Berne-based Lilliman and Sneer, confirmed the council has indeed saved the best for last: new regs concerning the designations of traditional stockbrokers and financial planners. “There are a few more options in these realms of finance than in other professions, though the choices are a bit anemic,” he said. “One article said there are thousands of designations, though at last count I saw only sixteen hundred or so.” (Bacon was referring to this article: http://www.mainstreet.com/article/money/investing/who-s-who-guide-financial-advisers) “What we’re planning to do here is create opportunity for those who just don’t have the time commitment to study for the Series 7, the Certified Financial Planner Exam, or the various life insurance and investment curricula out there.”

The solution, Bacon said, was deceptively simple: create the twenty-minute designation. “We’re calling it the financial desi-byte,” he said. “We saw immediately that, for example, the pass rates for the Chartered Financial Analyst exams were very low – about 40% or so for the first two levels, and 50% for the third level,” he said. “No financial-advising rank-and-filer is going to get through those tests and still remember to put their pants on zipper-in-front every morning. So instead, why not become a OOQG (On-again Off-again Quant Gal) or a QBDC (Quasi-Bond Duration Cruncher)? We’ve got quite a few others in the mix from this curriculum – it’s very robust,” he said. Additional desi-bytes:

SVLR – Single-Variable Linear Regressor

AAEISP – Assistant to the Assistant of the Editor of the Investment Policy Statement

ACBD, 8 – knows Almost as much as a Central Banker’s 8-year-old Daughter

CMFS – Certified Master of Finance-Speak

KNER – Knows there’s Not Enough money for Retirement

“It strikes me as a bit of overkill,” said Joel Redmond, author of the recently published Tradecraft: What Spymasters Can Teach us About Investing. “It’s kind of like making wives and fathers put ‘Diaper Ace One,’ ‘Youth Hockey Transport Director,’ or ‘Allowance Procurement VP’ after their names on their stationery at work.” 

Bacon agreed that not every aspect of the new legislation is positive, albeit differently. “We’ve had to set a limit of 50 designations per advisor in client and prospect communications,” Bacon said. “It seemed prudent to create some scarcity around these credentials.”

The book Tradecraft is available here: www.unlimitedpublishing.com/redmond.

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