PFS holders willing to pay for control: marketing tops designees' list of priorities; AICPA's future role undetermined.

Accounting Today, August, 2003 by Seth Fineberg

NEW YORK -- Holders of the Personal Financial Specialist designation want to take management of that designation away from the American Institute of CPAs, and are willing to pay additional fees to do it.

The designation holders have been pleading their case to the AICPA since April, when the institute began the process of researching new strategies for the PFS and two other designations that it created but which it has had trouble supporting due to limited resources.

While no decisions have been made regarding whose roof the PFS certification will be under, a recent survey conducted by the Association of CPA Financial Planners--created last year to represent the 3,000 PFS holders--makes a case that it's time to leave the AICPA.

Ninety percent of...