The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards is considering raising the standards of client care by introducing new requirements. Dow Jones Newswires reports that under the proposals, financial advisers would have to assume a fiduciary obligation to their clients, unless the two parties agreed otherwise. The Denver-based group defines fiduciary in its proposal as acting “in good faith, with the care an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances; and in [a] manner he or she reasonably believes to be in the best interests of the client.” The proposal, according to DJN, comes after urging from the National Association of Personal Financial Advisers to raise the bar and following a survey by the Financial Planning Association that found 86% of respondents felt the CFP code of ethics should contain a fiduciary duty requirement.
