If you’re a financial planner, you’ll soon have access to more continuing education and events, because FP Canada has a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada).
The MOU provides for stronger collaboration between the financial planning and accounting professions, a release said, including within continuing education (CE), research and thought leadership. Financial planners will get access to CPA Canada’s CE courses and national events, it said, and CPA Canada members will likewise have access to FP Canada’s courses and conferences — all at member prices.
“Clients today are facing extremely complex situations and a lot of volatility,” Tashia Batstone, president and CEO of FP Canada, said in an interview. “If we can find ways for our professionals to … gain more access to more content, to help them be better trained [and] build new competencies, I think that’s a win-win.”
The collaboration with CPA Canada involves more than one-quarter million professionals. FP Canada has about 18,700 credential holders (as of Dec. 31, 2024), while CPA Canada has 210,000 members, according to its website, which says it’s one of the world’s largest national accounting organizations. About 1,250 of FP Canada’s credential holders (nearly 7%) also have the CPA credential, FP Canada said in an email.
Batstone said FP Canada would accredit CPA Canada’s courses. “Our teams [at FP Canada and CPA Canada] are going to be working together to find out what categories the various courses will be accredited for,” she said. CE categories for financial planners include professional skills and general CE.
Courses currently listed on CPA Canada’s website cover a variety of topics including Excel skills, sustainability reporting, tax for owner-managers, death of a taxpayer and income attribution rules.
The organizations’ events will be cross-promoted. CPA Canada’s national conference runs in September, and FP Canada’s annual conference is in November.
“There are lots of great things to work on” together, Batstone said, promising further announcements. “We just had our first kickoff meeting to talk about how we’re going to operationalize the MOU.”
When asked if the MOU would affect any fees that financial planners must pay, Batstone said it wouldn’t. “In fact, it should be beneficial for CFPs [certified financial planners], because they’re going to get access to high-quality CE at lower cost,” she said, referring to member pricing. Further, “if we can enhance our effectiveness and efficiency through this MOU [by working together instead of separately], then that will have a positive impact … on our certificants” when it comes to costs.
In the release, CPA Canada’s president and CEO, Pamela Steer, said clients are “looking for holistic advice that integrates tax, retirement, investment and estate planning.” The MOU “will allow CPAs to deepen their value to clients through greater access to financial planning credentials at FP Canada.”
FP Canada already has a path for a CPA professional to get the CFP credential or qualified associate financial planner credential, and “what we’re looking at as part of this agreement is even making that pathway a little bit more streamlined,” Batstone said — a “more specific bespoke program” for CPA professionals.
Providing a pathway for financial planners to get the CPA credential is more of a challenge, given that harmonized education standards are implemented by the various provincial and territorial regulatory CPA bodies.
“For us to do a pathway for CFPs to CPA would mean we would have to work with each provincial body,” Batstone said. For now, “we want to work on a national-to-national organization approach.”
Last year, the regulatory bodies representing CPAs in Ontario and Quebec officially split from CPA Canada after disagreements arose over governance. Ahead of the split, the two regulators and CPA Canada reached an agreement on education, exams and standard-setting.
The split wasn’t a concern as FP Canada considered the MOU, Batstone said. “We knew that CPA Canada had incredibly high standards around their CE, around their thought leadership work that they’re doing, around advocacy,” she said. “This is an agreement between two strong national bodies.”
Both organizations are committed to the public interest, improving the skills and competencies of their credential holders, and global presence, Batstone said. “CPA Canada has a tremendous amount of credibility on the global stage,” she said, and FP Canada likewise has influence globally as part of the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) network.
“The financial ecosystem isn’t national, it’s international,” Steer said during the interview alongside Batstone. “So, having those international connections are incredibly important for then aligning, to the extent possible, with different jurisdictions around the world” to serve clients and exert influence.
The two leaders, along with Michael Thom, managing director of CFA Societies Canada, were panellists at a Canada Club Toronto event on Monday about ethical leadership and how to drive trust and growth in Canada’s financial industry.
The panellists spoke of the resulting efficiency and positive outcomes when professions are harmonized nationally and internationally, allowing professionals to work across jurisdictions. Opening interprovincial trade barriers was part of the conversation, as was the importance of globally recognized credentials, such as the CFP, CPA and CFA designations.
“Trust doesn’t have provincial boundaries, and standards shouldn’t either,” Batstone said during the event. Clients may have assets and family members across the country or across the world, and “they want to be able to deal with one person who knows and understands their financial situation and can help them.”
FP Canada is looking at ways to collaborate with CFP professional bodies around the world, she said when interviewed. In February she told this publication that educational partnerships, potentially with global affiliates of the FPSB, were part of FP Canada’s CE plan.
The current collaboration leverages her connection to CPA Canada, where she held previous positions. In addition, she and Steer have a longstanding relationship, with mutual respect for each other’s organizations and members, she said.
“We trust each other,” Batstone said. “We have similar leadership styles, similar philosophies in terms of working [and] collaborating, which makes moving forward with a MOU like this … easier to execute.”