We strive to maintain the highest membership standards of any organization for financial advisors. Why are these membership standards important to us? Because providing financial planning to the next generation is the core of what we do. We believe everyone deserves professional financial advice, regardless of age or assets. A traditional AUM fee model won’t work for clients without assets, and they oftentimes need us most.
All of our members must meet the following standards to qualify for membership:
Standard XY Planning Network Membership
- Fee-Only: Members must operate on a fee-only basis. We follow the CFP Board’s definition of Fee-Only: “A certificant may describe his or her practice as “fee-only” if, and only if, all of the certificant’s compensation from all of his or her client work comes exclusively from the clients in the form of fixed, flat, hourly, percentage or performance-based fees.”
- Provide Services Virtually As Needed: Members must be able to accommodate clients with mobility/accessibility considerations. Physical location should not limit one’s access to financial planning
- Fee-for-Service (Retainer, Subscription, Hourly, Flat-Fee offering): Must offer financial planning services to clients without requiring a certain asset level. Note: There is nothing wrong with offsetting planning fees with AUM
- Good standing with BrokerCheck: Each member is screened via BrokerCheck for approval into the Network. No member is approved if they have a regulatory fine, arbitration or settlement in excess of $10k. Please review this article for more information.
Note: CFP® designation is required to be listed in the Find-an-Advisor search tool
If you have questions about membership, please schedule a call with one of our Network Navigators.
International Membership:
*At this time we do not accept applications for advisors in the European Union.
*At this time we do not accept applications for advisors in the European Union.
- Available only to advisors with full-time residence outside of the United States
- Access to Find-an-Advisor portal with CFP® designation.
- Access to member-exclusive forums, educational materials, and resources
Multi-Member Firm Membership:
- Two or more advisors at the same firm may save by applying for a Multi-Member Firm Membership
- Full benefits are available for each additional member added to one Standard Membership
All Members:
Please note that all members must sign a fiduciary oath. Applicants are also expected to sign a compliance terms of service and an agreement regarding their fee-only transition; specifically, this agreement states that as an XYPN member, the advisor
- Must not sell any new products immediately as of joining
- Must eliminate all trails within 12 months
- Must not hold out as fee-only at any point, including during the 12-month period, while still receiving trails (and also acknowledges no member can be listed on the XYPN website while receiving any trails)
If you have questions about membership, please schedule a call with one of our Network Navigators.
