Mary Jo White和投资顾问监管辩论

我很想在今年的邀请邀请Sifma的年度活动，在一个可以容纳1,200个证券行业的场地上举行。该行业，包括证券行业和金融市场协会，提出了一些事件，这些事件已经进化为其成员的爱情 - 以及为什么不呢？这是他们的亲和力和游说集团。但经过一个非常有说服力的通信专业，让我加入庆祝活动，原来提供比我预期更多的启示。这是因为在11月10日之前，我没有意识到证券行业在这个人中有一个强大的倡导者证券交易委员会椅子Mary Jo White。

我早早到达时代广场万豪侯爵，抓住了一些早餐，并在巨型宴会大厅后面的新闻新闻段中的两个journo桌子之一。经过两个欢迎Sifma官员的地址，White将与CNBC记者玛丽汤普森的问答课程升级。各种新闻网点的成员用笔记本电脑，笔记本电脑和数字录音机的准备就绪，以吸取任何和所有新的珍珠，即Sec椅子可能会下降。

白色开始 - 不出意外 - 通过对犯罪和原子能机构的警务职责进行艰巨的立场。她屈服于她的执法肌肉，指出“强大的监管对销售运营很好”并证明了在他们升级之前停止犯罪的“破碎的窗户”制度。“我们不想忽略小型技术不融合，因为它导致更大的技术，”白色解释说。“它提供了强烈的威慑信息。”

在她50分钟的响应会议中，白人覆盖了广泛的证券议程项目，从加强交易技术等于网络，恐怖主义和其他攻击经纪回扣的威慑new regulations高频交易和executive compensationthat are related to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Resigned to the weighty list of potential new regulations, White said, “You never get to a place where you declare ‘mission accomplished.’”

Then, just as White’s rules-and-regs session was drawing to a close, she delivered a surprise.

当被问到秒的何处将归咎于信托标准的问题，白色华而不见。She is seemingly uncertain as to whether it is best practice to hold broker-dealers that promote themselves as financial advisers — to unsuspecting clients who don’t know the difference between a salesperson and an adviser — to the same standards of fiduciary care as bona fide financial advisers.

For those who have missed this particular conflict, some background is in order. Over the decade that followed the Great Depression, Congress enacted two laws to govern two types of financial services professionals. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 regulated salespeople at broker-dealer firms, whereas the1940年投资顾问法案为赋予财务建议的人设置更高的投资者信托护理标准。几十年后，有许多经纪人经销商提供有关投资和退休计划的建议，这两个角色融合了。但由于销售人员不会被视为与顾问的相同标准，他们可以称为无能为力的退休人员，并试图让他们将401（k）段滚入IRA账户，而无需提及费用将加倍和那里will no longer be a plan sponsor or other fiduciary managing the retirees’ assets.

当美国政府问责办公室发表了现在名（或臭名昭着）的研究时，2013年突出了这种差异的幅度和性质。劳工和美国国税局可以改善参与者的翻转过程。” GAO staff posed as potential purchasers of IRA rollover accounts and made recordings of fund salespeople who denied or did not mention that there were higher fees and no regulated oversight — details that a registered adviser is required to provide.

Among the GAO’s findings: “There is concern that participants may be encouraged to choose rollovers to IRAs in lieu of options that could be more in their interests” and “that service providers’ call center representatives encourage rolling 401(k) plan savings into an IRA even with only minimal knowledge of a caller’s financial situation.” The GAO recommended that the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service, both of which govern private company–sponsored retirement plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), take steps to reduce obstacles and disincentives to plan rollovers. These include plan participants receiving complete and timely information about distribution options.

Dodd-Frank gave the SEC the authority — although not a mandate — to address fiduciary duties for broker-dealers.

就其部分而言，自2010年10月以来一直在努力建立利益冲突规则，这将扩大Erisa下的“信托”的定义。Phyllis Borzi那assistant secretary for the employee benefits security administration at the DoL, has spoken publicly about her desire to even the playing field between broker-dealer advice and the counsel of advisers. To get there, the DoL has scheduled its second attempt at rulemaking for January 1, 2015.

“公司背后有很大的钱，不想有任何信托标准。They try to scare companies into thinking that their costs and liabilities will go up, and they try to scare regulators by telling them that plan participants will cash out of their 401(k)s if they can’t get advice from stockbrokers,” one large corporate plan sponsor, who requested anonymity, wrote to亚博赞助欧冠通过电子邮件。“这是愚蠢的，因为如果难以滚动，人们可以在他们的401（k）计划中留下他们的钱。”

So it was all the more surprising when White appeared unconvinced that salespeople should be governed by the same rules as advisers. Responding to a query on the fiduciary standard issue, White said, “Care needs to be taken to ensure we’re not harming investors by driving away service providers in the brokerage space.” That’s right: White is concerned that investors could be harmed if a new fiduciary standard for fund salespeople meant they could not sell as hard or as inappropriately as they do now.

White promised to make a decision by year-end. The financial services and investment management industry will be waiting with keen interest to learn where the SEC will come down on this issue.

在Twitter上关注弗朗斯丹麦@francesdenmark。

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