Fee-only advisors increase their ranks. (financial planners)(Focus: Banking and Financial Planning)

The financial planning business is changing. Originally most financial planners worked in the insurance or brokerage industries and earned their living from commissions. But one trade association in the Boston area has spotted a recent increase in its ranks of fee-only financial planners.

"In 1986 there were only about five of us in the Greater Boston area," said Joan Chasan, a fee-only planner and owner of Chasan Financial Services in Framingham. Now, within a one-hour radius of her office, there are more than 20 members of the National Association for Personal Financial Advisors, an organization for fee-only financial planners. "And not all fee-only financial planners belong to the organization."

At the national level, it appears that the percentage of fee-only financial planners has held steady from spring 1988 to spring 1991 at about 18 percent to 20 percent of respondents to the semiannual national surveys conducted by the College for Financial Planning, a nonprofit education institution. …