The Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation is a professional certification mark for financial planners conferred by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. To receive authorization to use the designation, the candidate must meet education, examination, experience and ethics requirements, and pay an ongoing certification fee. To earn the CFP Board designation, candidates must meet several requirements. The first of these is an educational requirement in which candidates must have a bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited college or university. As a first step to the present CFP certification criteria, students must master a list of nearly 100 topics on integrated financial planning.