Read Chuck Jaffe colum: Read Chuck Jaffe colum, Fiduciary standard leaves more questions than answers, according to Market Watch. By way of background, the RDR rules, according to the U.K Financial Conduct Authority, were aimed at making the retail investment market work better for consumers, which we should note is quite similar in tone and tenor to the Labor Department goal with its conflict-of-interest rule: that being, to make sure that retirement advisers put their clients’ best interests before their own profits. And when that rule is published in the Federal Register, critics will charge — as they have been doing since the revised version of the rule was proposed a year ago — that all heck is going to break loose here in the U.S. The critics will say that what happened in the U.K. when that region implemented similar rules in 2013 will happen here in the U.S.; that investors would pay more for advice, that fewer investors would be able to access advice, that there would be fewer advisers, and so on. The Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA, is a financial regulatory body in the U.K. but operates independently of the U.K. government, and is supported by fees paid by members of the financial services industry. The proposed rule, and related exemptions, would increase consumer protection for plan sponsors, fiduciaries, participants, beneficiaries and IRA owners. Here in the U.S., the Labor Department conflict-of-interest rule would treat persons who provide investment advice or recommendations to an employee benefit plan, plan fiduciary, plan participant or beneficiary, IRA, or IRA owner as fiduciaries under the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974, or ERISA, in a wider array of advice relationships than the existing ERISA regulations.
(news.financializer.com). As
reported in the news.
Tagged under Read Chuck Jaffe colum, rule topics.