Fair enough! 
Every person in the world has an ego, so it is quite ok.
You can’t possibly know what every person in the world has.
As a CPA, I can assure you that I was an “actual accountant” both before and after I received the designation, but I hope you receive the CFA charter soon so you can become an “actual investment professional”.
As a rebuttal, I think you’re being overly semantical, but I accept your rebuttal of my inartfully-worded sentence. More broadly, my comment meant there are laws (Sarbanes Oxley and IRS’ enrolled agent rules, among others) that made the CPA a legally more binding designation and I thought his comment “the CPA designation is now less valuable” was wrong.
Now, if you’d like to argue your CPA designation is less valuable like the poster I rebutted thought, please feel free to punch yourself (and your designation) in the proverbial sack. I guess as long as you get to swing at me first, it’s worth it…
To clarify, my argument is that the CPA is less valuable now than it used to be for jobs without the legal requirement for one. My experience comes from people in FP&A and attorneys who had previously earned a CPA (typically practicing law with a heavy financial component. Multiple people in these fields have mentioned that they feel the CPA exams have gotten easier, and clearly didn’t think as highly of it as they previously had.
I used this as an example because the CFA has extremely limited legal backing, so I felt it was similar to a CPA for professions that don’t require one. It’s a boost, the amount of the boost is dependent almost entirely on people’s perception of it.
Ahh, upon clarification I see your point. But I think the key question that most accountants before they take the CPA is “will I make more money for my time,” I think most will still answer yes even though your colleages say it isn’t as prestigious. Not to mention, it’s human nature to say goals you’ve already accomplished seem “easier” as you learn more and become older (the proverbial, “in my day, we walked to school uphill both ways” argument).
However, the truth is generally the opposite; tests become more comprehensive as new areas are introduced and knowledge compounds. The CFA is a great example – the first one was one test and 94% passed, I’m sure FRA wasn’t as comprehensive then. My thoughts are the CPA found the new added material made the test so hard that in order to compensate they had to change the testing and passing rules. I mean SOX alone probably added tons of new stuff for CPAs; comparing a 20-year test to one now is probably unfair. And tying this back to the initial point, perhaps the CFA tests have now gotten so voluminous and detailed that maybe a second test should be added.
And since we’re on the subject, I’d love for the CFA to get some legal backing on one hand, but on the other I guess it could change the nature and thoroughness of the designation as pass rates may have to change as the industry it would serve may need more practicioners.
Generally speaking (as CPA licensure is different for each state), there is only one service that a CPA provides that a non-CPA cannot: issuing audit opinions. I worked on the audit side of a Big 4 accounting firm for several years and even then I really didn’t need a CPA to do my work as technically only the signing partner is required to hold an active CPA license. Therefore, there is no practical reason for anyone other than an audit partner to get a CPA license; tax professionals, consultants, and CFO’s all could perform their tasks without a CPA. That being said, you are correct that you will see many accounting roles state “CPA preferred or required”, even though the role does not neccesitate one. In fact, the Big 4 accounting firm I worked at put in a rule that only students that had the educational requirements to sit for the CPA exam (generally 150 credit hours with close to half of those hours being accounting-specific, again varies by state) to be considered for an entry-role position.
So why the requirement? Certainly acheiving the CPA designation proves a high minimum competency to perform accounting, tax, and other fiduciary roles, much like the CFA charter does in investment management roles. That’s why I find the CPA designation and CFA charter to have many similarities in their respective fields, and as stated above, other than audit opinions for CPA’s, you’re not required to hold either for any regulatory/compliance/legal reason. While I have found the CFA exam to be more difficult, in total, than the CPA (however the CPA has its quirks that I could explain in more depth that makes some of its components more difficult than the CFA), there is one thing that CPA’s must do that CFA charterholders do not to maintain the designation: Continuing Professional Education (CPE’s). Again it varies by state, but generally speaking, CPA’s are required to go through a week (40 hours) of training every year to keep up-to-date on developments in the audit, tax, and regulatory environments. This CPE, in actuality, is what separates a CPA from just any other accountant, and in my opinion, avoids the problem of “the CPA designation now being less valuable.”
This is probably worthy of a new thread, but I believe before the CFAI offers the Level II/III exam more than once a year, I think they should and will require CFA charterholders to undergo CPE’s in order to continue to be an active charterholder. At the moment, CFA charterholders are only required to pay dues and complete an annual profressional conduct statement to be an active charterholder. But with CPE’s, the CFA charter will become even more prominent and reputable, and CPE’s also ain’t free (for those arguing about increasing revenue streams). At the moment, a charterholder could become active, tragically fall into a 30 year coma, then make a miraculous recovery, and as long as he catches up on the dues he/she owes (the CFAI waiving the fees while he/she was in a coma is questionable) and sign the professional conduct statement, he would be an active charterholder. But you cannot deny that he is not equal to his CFA charterholder companions who have theoretically stayed up-to-date on developments in the financial field, and personally, I would hire a finance professional without the CFA charter before him, sympathy aside. Obviously an extreme and unlikely example, it does show the peculiarity of the CFAI claiming on its website that “the CFA Program curriculum covers concepts and skills you will use at all stages of your career, connecting academic theory with current practice…”, yet there is no requirement for CFA charterholders to keep up with current practice. Further, if the CFAI required CPE for its charterholders, they could offer the exam much more often and it wouldn’t water down the charter one bit. I’d love to hear what current charterholders feel about this.
Regarding the resources/expenses to administer another L2 exam…I think advocates are forgetting that these tests are graded by charterholders with full-time jobs who have to take off of work to grade these exams. Yes, they get paid but to find quality graders twice a year willing to take off of work for 2 weeks (i think thats how long it is, S2000?) sounds like a huge obstacle.
Thank you for sharing, seriously. I see you are a great source of knowledge on the differences between the two, and I learned quite a deal from your post and you did bring up an interesting and (mostly) undiscussed point. I had to do CE as a stockbroker and a FA, and those tests and designations are nowhere near as hard and prestigious as the CFA.
An investment professional, the CFA charter does not one make
L3 for graders is like a two-week retreat. there’s some fun events planned in addition to the exam grading in Virginia
Not my main point, and I’ve addressed that point in detail above, but thanks for addressing these issues in all seriousness and not quoting the “Fast and Furious” (92) or making inane comments about olympic competitors with diarrhea (125).
Hi,
I am a L3 candidate, i dont want to troll as claimed in some other thread. Even i was part of the L2 forum once.
I want to just put fwd my opinion. I have given this beast twice, 1st one was a fail. If we were to have L2 twice a year -> I would say, it would be quite unfair for past retakers who waited and waited (some ppl gave it >4-5 times)
Instead why not have L2 twice a year but either
A) Bring down passing % to 20-25% by setting a high MPS
or
B) Add one more level between L2 and L3; with all exams at half-yearly intervals
Wow, I wish I had seen this before and posted earlier. There’s been lots of good points made from each side but largely everyone seems to be thinking of themselves.
I apologies for generalising but it comes down to:
Make the exam easier becuase I want to pass (or more cruelly I don’t want to put the effort in to pass the exam as it is).
Keep the exam more difficult because I suffered this / I don’t want to devalue my qualification.
Whilst I would suggest the second group have the better arguement everyone seems to be forgetting the most important stakeholder (and I might suggest Standard III) - the Client
Our clients should be the end beneficiary of our expertise gained through the CFA program end of discussion. Personally I don’t think the time I have invested in the program has delivered a worthwhile return for me (so far), but I do believe that as a consequence I am better at what I do and this benefit is for my clients / end investors.
So there are only really two questions
Do we want to make the Charter easier to obtain at the cost of the quality of service delivered to clients? The answer to this should always be No.
Is there a shortage of CFA Charterholders which needs to be addressed by making the Charter easier to obtain? I don’t think so.
For those of you waiting for your results next week I salute you all.
Remember the average time to complete the CFA program is 4 years, it seems a lot when you’re in the middle of it, but really it’s nothing most of us are going to end up working at least 40 years.
I would love to run the London Marathon, but like you guys I don’t have a lot of spare time to get ready, but when I do, I want to run 26.2 miles, not 25 because it’s a nice round number. I want to run 26.2 miles because if I will not have the same sense of achievement and that’s a large part of passing the CFA. Cut into little pieces and studied apart it’s not that difficult. A large part of the value of the Charter is that people know not only that you have mastered the body of knowledge, but the hard work and effort that went into doing it the way it has to be done - all at once on the first Saturday of June.
When I was a level 2 candidate I was determined to get my charter no matter how many times I had to sit each exam and I did not want it made easier, because I did not want it to be devalued.
When I first sat level 2 I failed because I was sick just before the exam and that was hard, I passed the next year and moved onto level 3. I passed first time, even though I had a tragic loss in my close family in the month before the exam. I realised at that point that I had passed because I had prepared properly and that I had failed level 2 because I had not.
Later once you have your charter framed and on your wall you will face illness, loss, other personal challenges and life will not be made any easier for you, you will not get a second chance at that product launch. So I suggest that you stop asking for things to be made easier for you and start putting in the effort required to make the grade.
If you think I’m being harsh, maybe I am but in the great tradition of level 1 vs level 2 comparisons wait until your failure to prepare leads to a 200k loss and you’re explaining why to your boss.
I was replying to CubsFanCPA as it’s clearly seen above. Are you posting with 2 accounts?
No, I’m not posting from two accounts. But CubsFanCPA was responding to me in the first place, and I’ll aggressively defend my opinion when I think I’m correct.
A few things: No. 1: I see your point, but *I repeat* they’ve already done this. I don’t get why many seem to have a huge blind spot on this – Level 1 has two tests a year. Let me repeat (again) and let me be clear, Level 1 is tested two times a year. Let me repeat this one last time, because it oddly is forgotten: L1 is given two times a year. I’m seriously going to post on this thread every 20 posts and write “Remember L1 is given two times a year.” (hopefully the repitition here does its job)
Also, I’m not sure your point holds, “possibly faster” doesn’t always equal “easier.” If they made the test to where the fail rate was 80% (or pass rate 20%) but allowed the test two times a year, the path, in aggregate, would not be *easier*.
Your second point is mere conjecture and opinion, as you simply can’t know if there’s a “shortage” of CFA Charterholders. Personally, I think there’s a shortage of financial professionals that are *required* to put the client first. To me, that’s one of the key parts of the designation. But that’s simply my opinion, as is yours that there’s not a shortage of CFA Charterholders.