Professionals in the sector have lamented the fact that, as things stand, anyone could in theory label themselves as a Paraplanner.
Last year it was announced that a special event would be run to bring Paraplanners together in one place to work on developing a standard for their profession.
This morning, Richard Allum CFPTM, Chartered MCSI, revealed that there had been such enormous interest that three events would take place to move the scheme forward.
Despite the creation of IFP and PFS qualifications, attempts to better define the role of a Paraplanner has been hard to achieve.
The so-called Howwows - new interactive workshop-style events - have stemmed from the Paraplanner Powwows, which Mr Allum has established in recent years as a more informal, less conventional kind of conference.
The lack of a universal standard or so called ‘kitemark’ has frequently been discussed at the Paraplanner Powwows.
Mr Allum said: “Back in November we asked whether people would be interested in taking part in a Howwow that tackled the question: Should there be common professional standards for paraplanning and, if so, what should they be?
“The overwhelming answer was: Yes. In fact, more than 120 people completed our survey to say yes.”
The details of the three events are as follows:
• 4 March 2016 Picturehouse Central, London
• 10 March 2016 The Chambers, Leeds
• 16 March 2016 the Howwow online
Mr Allum previously told Financial Planning Today: “Something that comes up at every Powwow we do is there is no professional standard and anyone can call themselves a Paraplanner, which is very frustrating.
“There are technical exams that anyone can take and non-Paraplanners often take them as well. It demonstrates you can do an exam on tax or whatever but not that you can be a Paraplanner.
"There’s lots of training stuff out there but it tends to be focused on the technical side of things. There’s nothing out there as a benchmark.
“There’s nothing really to tell them how to do the job day to day.
“A lot of Paraplanners work in different ways in different firms but their core skills and attributes are essentially the same.”