This week I attended the Personal Finance Society’s 2025 National Conference in the cutting edge, and somewhat cavernous, new Maritime Halls at London’s Excel Centre in Docklands. I was impressed. It was a good conference demonstrating a great deal of confidence in the future.

The PFS, the professional body for Chartered Financial Planners, must have been both relieved and pleased. As an organisation it has had its fair share of problems over the past few years. Rebellious members, a rapid exit of board directors and concerns about governance have all unsettled the organisation.

I saw no sign of that at this conference, just a professional body getting together in large numbers (some 2,000 attended) and learning, discussing and celebrating the progress the Financial Planning profession has made.

There was a palpable sense of confidence in the huge exhibition area and the auditoriums were vast and full of professionals. It was after all the biggest Financial Planning event in the UK.

I was struck too by the technical quality and professionalism of the many sessions. There were more than 25 and the quality was excellent, with highly experienced speakers, some top Financial Planners, business gurus and leading PFS members.

There was such a positive atmosphere that even the FCA speaker Kate Tuckley received a standing ovation, albeit after a bit of good-natured crowd egging on by host Craig Palfrey, keen for a unique selfie.

This year’s theme was ‘Mind the gap’ but in reality this slogan referred to several gaps holding back the profession such as the advice gap, the innovation gap, the generations gap and talent gap. All of these gaps need to be tackled but that will take time and hard work, as the PFS is aware.

So all in all, a triumph for the PFS and perhaps some hope for the future that it can begin to put behind it some of the problems of the recent past.

PFS President Carla Brown will be pleased that some her board's initiatives, such as the Pathways to the Profession new talent campaign, are beginning to show progress.

It's too early to say the future is clear but it does look brighter.

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Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and a journalist with 40 years of experience. This topical comment on the Financial Planning news appears most weeks, usually on Fridays but occasionally other days.  Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Follow @FPT_Kevin 

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