FSCP®
Financial Services Certified Professional®
Best For
Professionals seeking fundamentals to launch a financial services career.
Timing
<12 Months
Format
Follow the curriculum at your own pace with a flexible yet structured self-study learning model.
100% Online
Tuition
$660/course
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Experience the FSCP® Program
Foundational Knowledge for Career Success
Join FSCP® Program Director Kirk Okumura, MSFS, ChFC®, RICP®, along with one of the program’s successful alums, Fatima Williams, FSCP®, for a video tour of the FSCP® Program.
FSCP® at a Glance
Admissions Requirements
There are no prerequisite courses required to begin the FSCP® Program.
To meet the program’s requirements and receive the FSCP® designation, you must:
1. Successfully complete five courses (three core courses and two electives)
2. Pass each course’s final exam with a score of 70% or higher
3. Agree to comply with The American College Code of Ethics and Procedures
Participation in the annual Professional Recertification Program (PRP) is required to maintain the designation.
Only one of the following courses may be used towards the FSCP as an elective:
HS300, HS323, RICP353, or WMCP360
Tuition & Scholarships
Program tuition is paid on a per-course basis. Tuition covers all course fees and materials, including:
- Downloadable content for easy following
- Video lectures and expert interviews
- Quizzes, knowledge checks, and assessment questions
Individual course: $660
Scholarship opportunities are available for those who qualify, learn more here.
What You'll Learn
The FSCP® Program offers a 360-degree curriculum for running a financial services practice, with an emphasis on product knowledge, prospecting and marketing, and business planning principles.
Your learning outcomes of launching your career in financial services include:
- Fundamental financial services knowledge and skills
- Proven prospecting and marketing strategies to build new relationships
- Practical experience uncovering client needs
- Foundational business planning for a growing practice
- Applicable knowledge on a wide range of financial products
Course Delivery
Complete the five-course curriculum at your own pace and customize it to your personal and professional interests. Our program features:
- Powerful curriculum covering current trends and market realities, like social media, inflation, recession, and regulatory constraints
- 100% e-learning providing busy working professionals a structured, yet flexible platform to earn their designation in under 12 months
- Personalized course options that offer program flexibility tailored to your professional goals
Why Become an FSCP®?
59%
FSCP® designees who report dramatic or moderate impact in their ability to provide portfolio guidance.
69%
FSCP® designees who report significant or moderate improvement in client conversations.
129%
Higher growth in client retention than advisors with no designations.1
The FSCP® is Right For You If:
Inside the FSCP® Program
Courses to Complete
Five (three core and two electives)
Typical Completion Time
<12 Months
FP 99 Foundations of Financial Planning (REQUIRED)
Provides an overview of the major planning areas that financial professionals need to understand when serving clients.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- List the most common financial needs and the financial products used to address them
- Understand the big picture needed to effectively offer financial products and services that are consistent with clients’ overall financial situation and needs
FA 200 Techniques for Prospecting: Prospect or Perish (REQUIRED)
Teaches advisors industry-proven methods for successfully identifying, selecting, and approaching prospects for financial products and services.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Identify procedures for creating prospect awareness
- Target marketing concepts
- Create prospect qualification and prioritization techniques
- Overcome the psychological barriers to prospecting
- Innovative approaches to setting income and activity goals
- Consider strategic, tactical, and operational business planning
FA 203 Essentials for Meeting Client Needs (REQUIRED)
Guides professionals in examining the retirement planning process.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Utilize fact-finding, methods of analyzing facts, retirement planning software, and sales tracking
- Discuss the role of Social Security, Medicare, and tax policies in retirement planning
- Understand various accumulation vehicles such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance, and annuities
- Explain how retirement planning creates estate planning needs and addresses payout options, spousal benefits, and investment strategies.
FA 222 Essentials of Financial Needs (ELECTIVE)
Provides multiline agents with strategies for helping clients obtain the various insurance and other financial products they need.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Establish need
- Gather and analyze information
- Develop recommendations for products, including disability income insurance, life insurance, long-term care insurance, mutual funds, and annuities
- Understand concepts of retirement and estate planning
FA 257 Essentials of Life Insurance Products (ELECTIVE)
Provides an overview of the two basic types of life insurance policies — term and whole life — as well as their many variations.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Understand and identify all variations of life insurance products
- Comprehend the personal, family, and business uses of life insurance products
- Grasp policy illustrations, cost comparison methods, and income and estate taxation,
- Confront ethical issues facing the financial advisor
HS 300 Fundamentals of Financial Planning (ELECTIVE)
Provides an overview of the financial planning process.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of and apply the steps of the financial planning process
- Differentiate between various communication techniques used by advisors
- Utilize the various financial planning approaches to provide actionable recommendations
- Review personal financial statements and perform financial statement analysis
- Build a foundation in quantitative techniques and basic economic concepts
- Apply education planning and funding techniques to help clients achieve their goals
- Review and apply the ethics of personal financial planning within various frameworks
This course is a bridge to the CFP® Certification Education and Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) Programs.
HS 323 The Tools and Techniques of Life Insurance Planning (ELECTIVE)
Focuses on life insurance policies and annuities and their use in financial planning.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Understand individual insurance products
- Examine the organization, operations, and investments of insurance companies
- Determine how to advise based on client need
- Have a better understanding of insurance reserves regulation
- Integrate tools and strategies for annuities
This course is a bridge to the Chartered Life Underwriter® (CLU®) Program.
RICP 353 Retirement Income Process, Strategies and Solutions (ELECTIVE)
Covers the process of creating an effective retirement income plan, including evaluating client goals, possible risks, and overall management strategies.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Understand the steps in creating an effective retirement income plan
- Identify retirement income needs, objectives, and goals by evaluating the client's current situation
- Determine how to choose the appropriate retirement income strategy
- Evaluate income tax, estate issues, retirement risks, and other threats to achieving client retirement goals
- Integrate risk management tools, products, and strategies into client plans
This course is a bridge to the Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®) Program.
WMCP 360 Introduction to Goal-Based Planning (ELECTIVE)
Introduces goal-based wealth management through a theoretical framework guided by the life-cycle model of optimal investing, borrowing, and protection.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll be able to:
- Describe the role of wealth over a lifetime
- Observe investing within a life-cycle framework
- Apply the value of a goals-based approach to investing
- Analyze the impact of the economic environment on financial markets
- Identify the CFP® financial planning process and evaluate strategies for managing effective client communication
- Assess ethical practices and financial regulations
- Implement a goal-based process for planning and managing client wealth
This course is a bridge to the Wealth Management Certified Professional® (WMCP®) Program.
Fatima’s Story
The FSCP®️ Program offers a deeper and wider knowledge of financial services foundations, taking you from product knowledge to competency; from an agent or advisor to a more equipped financial professional.
Fatima Williams, FSCP®
The material was engaging enough that I didn’t just have to learn it–I wanted to learn more. It’s made me more knowledgeable in everything I do as a financial professional. The information I got from The College has been immensely helpful to my career.
Asa Rowlett, FSCP®
I strongly recommend that new advisors complete this designation. It will help you see the path, plan the path, and execute the path of growing your practice through qualified referrals and introductions that align with the markets in which you want to work.
Brian Witherby, FSCP®, CLU®
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FSCP® Program: See Where We Stand
Save time with a quick view of how our FSCP® Program stacks up against comparable financial planning education programs.
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FSCP® Program: See Where We StandSave time with a quick view of how our FSCP® Program stacks up against comparable financial planning education programs. |
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FINISH IN <12 MONTHS |
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LIFELONG LEARNING STACKABILITY |
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Insights of Nationally Recognized Thought Leaders |
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Design Your Own Curriculum
Create a custom learning path to meet your needs
With three required core courses and your choice of two electives from six options, you can build your own five-course FSCP® Program based on your knowledge and practice needs.
Learn From the Leaders in Financial Services Practice Management
Kirk S. Okumura
MSFS, ChFC®, RICP®
Assistant Professor, FSCP® Program Director
Connect on LinkedIn
Read Bio
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Kirk S. Okumura
MSFS, ChFC®, RICP®
Assistant Professor, FSCP® Program Director
Connect on LinkedIn
Read Bio
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View Frequently Asked Questions
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FSCP® Program FAQs
The Financial Services Certified Professional® (FSCP®) is a foundational financial planning certification offered by The American College of Financial Services. The FSCP® designation focuses on delivering functional practice management tools and foundational financial planning knowledge to enable new financial services professionals or career-changers to launch their career in financial services. Its broad base of knowledge is similar in concept to a designation like the Life Underwriter Training Council FellowSM (LUTCFSM); however, the FSCP® Program offers a more advanced curriculum, insights from top thought leaders in the financial services profession, and stackability to move on to future specializations with other College designation programs. The FSCP® Program includes insights on prospecting and marketing in financial services, strategies to identify client needs, broad knowledge of financial products, and foundational business planning considerations.
To become a certified financial services professional through the FSCP® Program, you must complete the five-course program, including all associated classwork and a final exam for each course (three core and two electives). These on-demand online courses make earning this professional financial services designation easy on your busy schedule.
The Financial Services Certified Professional® (FSCP®) Program can be completed in 12 months or less and is considered a foundational designation for a certified financial services professional. According to FUSE Research’s 2024 Designation Outcomes Study, FSCP® designees report 129% higher growth in client retention, 44% higher growth in their number of clients, and 17% higher growth in earnings over a three-year period than their peers with no designations.
In addition, the FSCP® Program’s flexible course options can be customized to any learning path as a financial services professional, offering a gateway to such designations as the Chartered Life Underwriter® (CLU®), Wealth Management Certified Professional® (WMCP®), Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®), and others with shared course requirements.
Effective April 1, 2024, the FSCP® Program has been updated and enhanced in the following ways:
Instead of requiring seven courses (five required and two electives), the designation has been streamlined to five courses (three required and two electives).
The program courses, both required and elective, better prepare designees to meet the needs of their clients. We are also now offering students the opportunity to take one or more electives that will serve as a bridge course into the CFP® Certification Education, Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®), Wealth Management Certified Professional® (WMCP®), Chartered Life Underwriter® (CLU®), and/or Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®) Programs.
In addition, FSCP® course format has changed from a hybrid, moderated model to a 100% online self-study format to more easily accommodate students' work schedules. This will enable students to finish the program more quickly (an estimated two months sooner) and at a reduced cost. As part of this change, the FSCP® Program no longer features a single high-stakes final exam. Instead, each of the five program courses features knowledge checks, quizzes, and a final exam each student must pass with a score of 70% or higher to move on to the next course. Course exams are available online or can be taken in-person and at students’ convenience through Pearson VUE.
As of February 1, 2024, for the CFP® Certification Education Program as well as the ChFC®, WMCP®, and CLU® Programs, the first course in these programs will also count in the FSCP® Program as one (1) program elective.
If you hold the LUTCF® awarded by The American College of Financial Services, you will need to take FP 99 (FSCP® Certification Course) to obtain the FSCP®. You may display both designations.
If you hold the LUTCF® awarded by The College for Financial Planning, you are eligible to receive two credits for the College for Financial Planning’s LUTCF® — one for FA 222 and the other as an elective. The transfer of credit agreement is only valid until December 31, 2023.
If you hold the LUTCF® awarded by The American College of Financial Services and the FSS designation, you may apply to receive the FSCP® designation but in doing so must agree to relinquish the FSS designation. The student may display the LUTCF® and the FSCP® designations only.
If you hold the FSS designation awarded by The American College of Financial Services, you will need to complete one additional elective course that you have not previously taken, as you have already satisfied the FSCP® certification requirement.
A waiver of course credit for certain courses will be granted to individuals who hold the FIC or FICF designation, provided the specific course(s) identified for the waiver of course credit were based on course revisions produced in April 2007 or later.
For the FIC Basic Introduction to Life Insurance, course credit will be granted for The American College’s FA 203(Essentials for Meeting Client Needs), provided that the student has completed the FIC designation. Credit for one of the FSCP® program electives will be granted if the student has passed the FICF Graduate I Estate Planning or FICF Graduate II Business Insurance Concepts courses. A confirmation letter from Kaplan is required to receive any of these credits.
For questions about waiver of credit towards the FSCP® designation, please contact us at 866-883-4498.
As of April 1, 2024, the FSCP® Program no longer features a single high-stakes final exam. Instead, each of the five program courses features knowledge checks, quizzes, and a final exam each student must pass with a score of 70% or higher to move on to the next course.
Final course exams are taken through Pearson Vue testing centers. Students visit the Pearson VUE website to schedule their exam and can choose whether to take the exam at one of many in-person testing centers or remotely via Pearson VUE’s online testing system. Click here for more information on scheduling and taking your exam.
Take the Next Step
As an FSCP®, you’ll gain holistic applied knowledge in running a financial services practice, with an emphasis on financial products, prospecting and marketing, and business planning principles to launch your career in financial services.
1 FUSE Research Network. The American College of Financial Services Designation Outcomes Study. 2024. Based on reported three-year growth.