Para Planning
What Does Paraplanning Mean?
Para planning is a relatively new position within the financial planning industry that involves the performance of the administrative duties of a financial planner.
This function was created to allow financial planners to focus on the sell-side by working more closely with customers to identify their investing needs.
In countries where Financial Planning is well established, working as a Paraplanner is being utilized by young graduates to get a foot in the financial planning industry's door, where they can gain experience and move up to a financial planner themselves later.
The Para planner position does not require any sales contacts.
The tasks assigned to the Para planner are standard in their concept but require some independent thinking in their application.
Attention to detail is extremely important. Good math skills are required, along with an ability to develop big-picture thinking.
A Para planner then is essentially a person who is variously described as:
• An administrator
• An Adviser’s secretary/PA
• A highly technical and qualified individual who can offer skills in addition to those of the adviser to provide the client with a positive professional experience.
What does a Para planner do?
This is a very difficult question to answer as all Financial Planners and Advisers require slightly different things from their Para planners, however there are some core financial planning skills that all Para planners perform to a lesser or greater extent and would form the basis of any Para planning role.
These are:
• Excellent report writing skills,
• Ability to interpret and analyze statistics accurately,
• Structure oral presentations of reports,
• Good understanding of resources management,
• In-depth knowledge of Cost and Tax implications on products,
• Ability to conduct research for appropriate providers and investments,
• Good understanding of compliance issues,
• Good time management skills,
• Excellent interpersonal and IT skills, etc
Just like there is a certification and training system for the planners, there is a similar system for Para planners too.
In India the level of awareness about the advantages of Financial planning and the benefits of seeking Financial advice from a Certified Financial Planning is growing so will be the need of engaging a Para planner.
Currently there are some 1300 qualified CFPs and 20000 aspiring CFPs. The potential of Financial Planning is immense for a market as vibrant and as diverse as ours.
The regulatory and general outlook is evolving very fast. The foundation of this is laid by Mr. Chandrashekhar Bhaskar Bhave and there are a lot of expectations from Mr. Upendra Kumar Sinha (Ex-Chief of UTI AMC) who is a veteran and has vast experience with him.
