Mortgage Choice is putting the finishing touches to plans for a financial planning pilot that it hopes will be a big growth opportunity for the company.Mortgage Choice chief executive Michael Russell said the board was "pretty settled" on issues such as branding, whether to go for an organic build or acquisition, and the details of the customer service proposition.He said the company would not be adopting the "general practitioner" model - whereby the same person is trained to write loans and sell superannuation and other investment products.Russell said: "Our view is that the core capabilities and skills of mortgage brokers are different to those of financial planners.  "Some companies are using the GP model, but we want to go out there with specialists in each field."He said the financial planners and the brokers will work closely together, and the company may offer its broker franchise-owners equity positions in the new planner business."We want to able to offer planners who are currently employed an opportunity to move into self-employment. That will be one attraction and the other will be the lead-flow from our brokers."The planning business will offer a "full suite of services" but will not be targeted at high net-worth individuals in the way that most established financial planning businesses are. Russell said: "The new legislative regime for financial planning includes the concept of scaled advice. We want to use that to make advice more affordable and more accessible to groups that have not had access to financial planning before."So, will it carry the Mortgage Choice brand? Russell said: "We have done consumer research to see whether our brand could stretch into the financial planning space. The responses came up well on brand stretch."