What Does A Financial Advisor’s Senior Designation Mean?

When you’re considering working with a financial professional, how do you pick the right person? Do you choose someone with an impressive-sounding title/designation that makes it seem like they have expertise helping people just like you, such as “senior specialist” if you’re a senior citizen?

While a designation like that might inspire confidence, before you work with anyone, you may be surprised to learn what really goes into getting these designations. It might not mean what you think it means.

Stockbroker’s Senior Designations

According to the Security and Exchange Commission’s website (SEC), neither they or the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) “endorse professional designations or titles such as “senior specialist” or “retirement advisor” that some financial professionals use to market themselves.”

The SEC’s website continues, “The requirements for being designated as a “senior specialist” vary greatly. In some cases, a financial professional may need to pass several rigorous exams and have several years of experience working in a particular field to receive a specialist designation. Other “senior specialist” designations may be relatively quick and easy to obtain, even for an individual with no relevant experience,” depending on who awards the designation.

That’s right, a person with no relevant experience could have the expert-sounding title of “senior specialist”! How is that possible?

While the government may not endorse the designation of “senior specialist”, some organizations endorse it or something similar.

For Example, the Society of Certified Senior Advisors (SCSA) gives a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) credential, which can be earned with only three days of coursework.

Other certifications include the, Certified Senior Specialist, Certified Senior Consultant, and Chartered Senior Financial Planner. It can get pretty confusing since these sound like other certifications, such as the Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Financial Planner.

Senior Investment Fraud

Unfortunately, scam artists commonly target seniors through a variety of fraudulent tactics. Official-sounding designations can make scammers seem like they’re legitimate. A little bit of education into how to protect yourself, or seniors you care about, from investment fraud can be very helpful. You can see the SEC’s free guide here.

Resources For Research About Stockbroker Licenses

Before you work with any financial professional, do some research by looking into:

A person’s designation at the FINRA professional designation page.

An adviser firm at the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website.

The background of a broker, firm, or adviser at FINRA’s broker check.

Silver Law Group is a nationally-recognized securities law firm headquartered in South Florida representing investors worldwide with their claims for losses due to securities and investment fraud. The firm has successfully recovered multi-million dollar awards for its clients through securities arbitration and the courts. To contact Scott L. Silver to discuss your legal matter, call toll-free (800) 975-4345 or e-mail him at SSilver@silverlaw.com.