Blue Chip Issue 85

BLUE
CHIP
COLUMN
PASSION FOR
OUR PROFESSION
We are a profession and not a so-called industry.
Kobus Kleyn, CFP®, Tax
and Fiduciary Practitioner,
Kainos Wealth
Kobus Kleyn has published
over 200 articles and authored
three books. He is a multiple
award-winning professional
and holds eight memberships
with professional associations.
His most recent awards were
lifetime achievements awards
from the FPI (Harry Brews), The
Million Dollar Round Table (Top
of the Table Life Membership)
and Liberty Group (Life
Membership) in 2021/22.
With October month bringing to life
our Financial Planning Institute
conference and associated
professional awards for 2022, it
would be apt for me to touch on my passion
for our profession and drive awareness of our
professionalism. It would be appropriate to start
with a better understanding of an industry and
profession. I hope that at the end of this article,
my fellow financial professionals and all financial
stakeholders will increasingly refer to us as a
profession and not a so-called industry. Let’s review
the definitions of both.
“An industry is an economic activity concerned
with the processing of raw materials and the
manufacture of goods in factories.”
If we consider the creation and selling of financial
products without advice, we may see ourselves as
an industry.
“A profession is a vocation founded upon
specialised educational training, the purpose of
which is to supply objective counsel and service
to others, for direct and definite compensation,
wholly apart from expectation of another
business gain. A profession arises when any trade
or occupation transforms itself through the
development of formal qualifications based upon
education, apprenticeship and examinations,
the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers
to admit and discipline members according to a
code of conduct and ethics.”
As financial professionals in South Africa,
under the FSCA and FAIS Act regulations, we all
must meet minimum requirements after a twoyear
supervision period. We have a professional
body in the Financial Planning Institute of
Southern Africa, that endorses professionals who
want to go well above the minimum standards
and be certified as fully-fledged professionals.
Unfortunately, we do not have as many FPI
members at this time as we should. Still, I am sure
over time, with awareness with publications like
Blue Chip and the FPI, as well as organisations
like the Financial Intermediaries Association
and Insurance Institute of South Africa, we are
transforming into a fully-fledged profession like
the medical profession.
I attend many webinars, seminars, conferences
and financial events, and I have to admit it feels
like a stab in the back when many still refer to
us as an industry. If you, in your mind, believe
we are an industry, how would we uplift the
status and respect we deserve for changing
people’s lives daily, as we have observed even
more so over the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic?
If anything, the pandemic has confirmed our
status as a noble profession.
Perceptions always tend to become a reality,
and what we do as financial professionals
will define our destiny as a profession and
professionals. Maybe there are sections of our
financial services that would always stay an
industry, but financial planning is not one, and
we need to raise the bar across the board to meet
the requirements set out above in the definition
of a profession.
Sometimes it is all in words,
and words do matter.
As financial professionals, no matter the
advisor category you operate under, it should
always start with financial advice and guidance
long before products. A consequence of
solid advice may lead to selling products or
investments. We need to create an advice
experience for the public and our clients with
the appreciation that we are in a vocation, not
a job. We must make clients’ dreams come true
by considering their long-term needs and advice
with due ethics and conduct.
Sometimes it is all in words, and words do
matter. Allow your passion to become your
purpose, and it will one day become your
profession. Next time you use the word “industry”,
think about it, and update your vocabulary to
include profession.
18 www.bluechipdigital.co.za