The Academy of Financial Services (AFS) is excited to be collaborating with FPA to provide an "integrated conference experience" for AFS members this year. The AFS research conference will run for the full 2.5 days of the FPA Conference as part of a dedicated research track bringing the best of AFS and the Journal of Financial Planning (JFP) to you.
- A dedicated Research Room for presentations designed to bring the most relevant research impacting professional financial planners. This includes research sessions sponsored by the JFP and peer-reviewed research papers presented by AFS members. These sessions are CE credit approved.
- The winner of the JFP's Montgomery-Warschauer Award for best research from the prior year will present their research.
- In the Research Room AFS will coordinate other research content such as a panel discussion with the editors of the 4 major FP research journals explaining to planners and academics the type of research content to be found, how to best consume/digest research and apply it to a FP practice and more.
- A new FP Research Shark Tank. Based on the format of the popular TV series a select number of researchers will do 5 minute "pitches" on research that they believe would be significantly impactful for practitioners. Planners and researchers will then vote on the most exciting research proposal.
- AFS are co-ordinating 2 additional mini-breakout research rooms where researchers will present additional peer-reviewed, unpublished research selected from the many submissions we received. A timetable of these sessions can be found below.
- AFS will manage the research rooms for fully-hybrid attendance with face-to-face or virtual attendance. Although the content will be exceptional, we hope to see many of you in person as the networking, exhibit hall, FPA keynote speakers and other sessions outside of the research cannot be experienced any other way.
Crypto as Currency: The Association of Cryptocurrency and the Use of Alternative Financial Services
Short Description
Alternative financial services (AFS) have been studied in recent years in terms of how these financial markets are utilized. The products and services include check cashing, pawnshop loans, payday advance loans, electronic cash transmissions, tax refund anticipation arrangements, rent-to-own contracts, prepaid debit cards, gift cards, and loans collateralized by automobile titles. Cryptocurrency has become part of this AFS ecology. The 2023 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking collected information on AFS use, including the use of cryptocurrency as an AFS. This research answered the questions: a) Do users of cryptocurrencies for AFS also tend to use them for investments; b) do users of cryptocurrencies to make payments tend to use them for other AFS purposes, and c) do users of cryptocurrencies to send money to friends and family tend to use them for other AFS purposes?