Introducing the Financial Planning Longitudinal Study (<scp>FPLS</scp>)

ABSTRACT This report introduces a new data resource, the Financial Planning Longitudinal Study (FPLS). This is the first wave of a 10‐year project underwritten by the CFP Board with the goal of tracking the use of professional financial services by a representative sample of mass affluent households in the US. This study describes the development of the survey and summarizes the descriptive findings across respondents who report not using a financial professional, those who report using a CFP professional, as well as those who report using another type of financial professional. The FPLS data offer new insights into how people use financial professionals, as well as potential new directions for researchers in the future.