A financial consultant is a specialist who helps clients solve various financial problems. Their role can be compared to the role of a personal trainer, but in the financial sphere: they accompany a person on the path to a stable and comfortable financial future.
Financial consultants can help, for example, with budget optimization, savings for education or real estate, investment and tax issues, debt management and other tasks.
The consultant analyzes the client’s current situation, identifies his weaknesses and offers strategies to eliminate them. I will tell you more about what financial consultants do below.
In international practice, such specialists are often called independent financial advisors (IFA), which translates as “independent financial consultant”. However, they should not be confused with holders of the CFA title – this is a completely different category of experts.
In Russia, the profession of a financial consultant is at the development stage. The demand for such experts is growing, but there are still not enough qualified specialists. This is due to high requirements for education and work experience. For example, it is quite difficult to obtain the international CFA title, which is one of the most prestigious in this field. In addition, the consultant bears personal responsibility for the recommendations he gives to the client – the wrong advice can jeopardize his reputation.