Institute of Business & Finance Announces RIS Name Change to the CIS

Release Date: 2009-06-01

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact:

Pam Owen

Director of Student Services

Phone: (858) 866-1706

Email: powen@icfs.com

Institute of Business & Finance Announces RIS Name Change to the CIS

This notice is in regards to the Retirement Income Specialist (RIS) designation and it's preceding designation, Certified Senior Consultant (CSC). Each of these designations have been changed to the Certified Income Specialist^™ (CIS^™).

Due to issues with insurance and securities regulatory bodies, some states (e.g., CA, NE, MA) have restricted the use of certain words pertaining to the elderly market, including the use of such words as: senior, elderly and retirement.  IBF sees this as a trend and anticipates other states will legislate similar restrictions. In order to address these issues, IBF has initiated a change to our RIS and the precursor designation the CSC. IBF has also had the CIS^™ designation program reviewed by the California Department of Insurance and it has received an exemption from code CIC Section 787.1. You can access the California Department of Insurance website here.

As of June 1, 2009 your RIS or CSC designations were formally renamed to:

CIS^™ (Certified Income Specialist^™)

How this affects you:

You will have until June 1, 2010 to change your marketing materials that use the RIS or CSC marks to the Certified Income Specialist^™ (CIS^™) designation marks.  After June 1, 2010 the RIS and CSC designations and their corresponding marks will not be recognized by IBF.

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS & FINANCE – Founded in 1988, IBF is a non-profit provider of financial education and designations to members of the financial services industry. IBF is the fourth oldest provider of financial certification marks in the United States. In 1988, IBF launched its first certification program, CFS^® (Certified Fund Specialist^®). Today IBF offers four additional financial designation programs: CAS^® (Certified Annuity Specialist^®), BCE^™ (Board Certified in Estate Planning^™), CIS^™ (Certified Income Specialist^™) and CTS^™ (Certified Tax Specialist^™).