Financial Planning profession in our country is in its early stage and will require some adjunct services which will help the profession grow. But the scope is very much there and it can be a good career choice for a lot of young graduates who can go for CFP certification, which is considered a gold standard in financial planning across the world. In addition to pure financial planning, there are many areas which can provide opportunity to the young financial planners to give a flying start to their careers. One such service which is relatively new and finding acceptance in a lot of financial circles across the world is Para planning. Para planning is a service which entails the carrying out of administrative tasks such as creating a budget or arranging documentation for the execution of a stock order or putting together a financial plan based on the data furnished by the customer.

As per Investopedia, “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.” Para planners do most of the back-end work (preparing plans and reports) for financial planners. Some large firms have developed new departments for Para planners within their organisations; however, the cost of hiring Para planners is extremely high, and as a result, this option may be unavailable to some smaller companies. This has led to the development of outsourcing companies who provide Para planning services to companies upon request. The word ‘Para planning’ means carrying out the administrative duties of a financial planner or a financial advisor by another professional or a firm which has outsourced these services. The role of a Para planner is not clearly defined. Para planner jobs involve much administrative work; in fact, they are often confused with secretarial or administrator jobs. The work occasionally involves tight deadlines; so, multitasking and organisational skills are a must. Specific duties:
1. Preparing technical reports, letters and other documentation to be used by advisors.
2. Reviewing the existing arrangements such as pensions and investments, and helping advisors rate their suitability.
3. Taking notes during client meetings to be presented to the advisor.
4. Conducting deep research on funds,investments and other financial products to be used as reference by advisors.
5. Receiving client calls and answering basic questions, or directing them to the right person or department as needed.
6. Ensuring the implementation of approved client financial plans.
7. Accompanying advisors on appointments.
8. Coordinating with clients on behalf of advisors, taking messages, booking meetings and keeping a communications log.
9. Following up on minor issues such as copies of wills, tax returns and account statements.

The list is not exhaustive and not all the Para planners are expected to do all the above mentioned tasks; but they are some of the tasks among others that a Para planner is supposed to perform.
Evolution of Para planning While the concept of Para planning is usually traced back to the United Kingdom during the 1990’s, the idea is now found in many financial circles around the globe. Nations like Canada,the United States, Brazil, Japan, and many countries in Africa have found the addition of
the Para planner to be extremely effective in increasing the efficiency of handling all types of transactions. Discount brokers, advisors and budget planners all find Para planning a helpful approach.In the Indian Scenario, where financial awareness is at a lower level when compared
to most of the developed world, financial planning profession is fast gaining currency; but at the same time we have to discount the fact that among all the people who are engaged in financial services industry as intermediaries there are few people who are qualified.And if we look at it practically, even if all the IFAs and Life Insurance agents want to become CFPs, it is going to take a lot of time. If we look
at the demand and supply equation for the financial planning and wealth management service in our country, in a country where there are 1 lakh + CAs, countless MBAs, only 1200 CFPs are far from being sufficient. If we compare the number to the number of intermediaries, there are more than a lakh AMFI certified IFAs and more than 15-20 lakh life insurance agents who are dealing with the clients which are in a very large number.Therefore, in our country, the profession of Para planning can assume a different role. In addition to be of assistance to a financial planner or a financial advisor in administrative matters related to financial planning, a Para planner can act as an advisor or a consultant to financial advisors.A financial advisor or an IFA spends most of his time prospecting new customers or following up with the existing customers for the generation of new business, thereby focusing on the selling approach. While this approach has been the major driving force for the revenue in past, the financial planning approach, research and analysis takes a back seat in case of most of the advisors mainly because of two reasons:1. The advisor doesn’t have time to do the research and all other administrative tasks. 2. The advisor is not skilled enough to do quantitative and qualitative research.Looking at the current state of affairs in our financial services industry, the time seems opportune for the introduction of a Para planner.In our country, the requirement for someone who can help the advisor take the right approach is very high; and especially for young CFPs who have started in their careers, it is a wonderful opportunity in which they can sharpen the skills and help the senior advisors and planners who have a large client base and do not have time to do research, prepare reports or acquire technical skills through education.There are a lot of advisors operating in our country whose core skills lie in marketing and acquiring new customers and following up with the existing customers for more revenues. Somehow, they fall short in providing well researched reports to their clients, timely inputs for great investment. This is the area in which a Para planner can help these advisors in maintaining high level of customer satisfaction with their clients which will further lead to customer retention. At the same time, a lot of people in our country, who are mostly young and have recently acquired CFP or any other similar certification, are finding it very difficult to proceed as they do not have an existing client base which is very large nor they have any means by which they can increase their client base; these people will have very good technical skills and expertise to carry out wonderful investment research and all the administrative tasks that are required to be carried out in a financial planning set up.If these two kinds of people collaborate - one who can market and get new people and second who can service these people and keep them happy - I believe, the financial planning profession is set to make inroads into all the sections of our society. This will create a winwin-win situation to all the stakeholders in the process. The benefits that will accrue out of this process would be as follows: • Seasoned Financial Advisors (Old IFAs and Insurance Agents): These people can concentrate on their tasks of acquiring customers and building relationship, leaving more technical tasks to the people who are adept at them. • Para planners (Young Financial Planners and Other CFPs): Young financial planners will get an opportunity to deal with the client data to gain an experience so that they can later start their own independent financial planning practice. In addition, those people who do not have a marketing flair, but are good in any of the technical area, would be able to utilise their skills.• Clients: Customers will be in the best position as the relationship management is done by the person who is best in the area; at the same time, the customers will get the advice and the input provided by the people who are expert in that particular area (read Para planner). Some of the findings of a study conducted by NMG Financial Services consulting in UK in 2009 Para planner role: Roles are clearly delineated between advisors and support staff: • ADVISOR -Business development, client relationship management, advice. • PARAPLANNER -Product & fund research,analysis, report writing.
• SUPPORT- New business processing, general administration.Age, Qualification, Career choice and Income Typically younger, highly qualified, frequently graduates:
– 43% hold a university degree compared to 24% of IFAs
– Average age 37 compared to 48 for IFAs Highly technical and clear hunger for advanced knowledge:
– CFP 1–5 and Diploma commonplace
– 26% with RDR level qualifications Para planning is a career choice in its own right as well as being a route to advisor status:
– 55% plan to stay in current role
– 22% aim to become advisors Average income £27,000 So, the UK example tells us that Para planners are typically younger, highly qualified professionals, who are staying in this profession by choice. They are also technically skilled and are ready to provide the much needed support to IFAs. This is the path that can be followed by the profession in India too with a plethora of young talent available; the Para planner can easily be a force to reckon within financial circles in our country too. (The author is an MBA from IMT Ghaziabad and a Certified Financial Planner, who holds a certification in Financial Modelling from NSE.In his career spanning nine years, he has worked with premier financial services like ICICI, SBI,Kotak, Sundaram, BNP Paribas, etc. and conducted more than 35 training programmes for their personnel across the country.)