The founder of The Timebank has declared he has no time for the ‘snotty’ attitude towards less qualified paraplanners.
Damian Davies, whose firm outsources paraplanning services to financial advisers, says there is space in the industry for a variety of different paraplanners to exist side by side.
This includes qualified experts as well as those who are less experienced and can simply ‘churn through work’.
Speaking to FT Adviser, Davies said: “The role of a paraplanner varies depending on the company they work in. On one extreme you have a paraplanner who is a hardcore technician. The adviser relies on them as a critical friend and they are the go-to for knowledge.
“On the other extreme, you’ll also have someone who does a bit of admin and is moving into a paraplanner role. They don’t have a lot of experience but they are getting some papers under their belt but they are there to churn through work.
"In my view, and it’s a little controversial because some people are snotty about what a paraplanner should be, but both of those are paraplanners. I think they are both equality valid and it's down to the firm which type of paraplanner they have.
“There is a polarised view that a paraplanner should be qualified, should be this, should be that. And that’s cool, that's awesome - if that suits that business.”
His own view on the topic has changed drastically from 20 years ago when he set up his business and only hired paraplanners with chartered status.
But over the years, he has taken on a relaxed approach and recently employed two graduates with little experience.
He said: “Our business has gone through an evolution. When we started, I would only bring in people who were chartered as paraplanners, because it made sense and that was the way our business was at the time.
"Now we have both. We have chartered financial paraplanners, who are a critical friend to our advisers. But we also just bought on two graduates with financial services degrees. They are green, they have never worked and are kids essentially, and both of those roles fit what our clients want.”
Not all paraplanners will be advisers
He is also keen to challenge the industry’s expectations that all paraplanners want to eventually become advisers.
He said “Paraplanning can be a really good stepping stone to learn the basics. If you want to be an adviser then I would always say be a paraplanner first but it doesn't have to work that way. It is not that paraplanning is a less interesting job.
"Being a paraplanner doesn’t mean you want to progress to be an adviser because they are different jobs. It is not a lesser job.”
