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Regulation and Compliance > Federal Regulation > SEC

SEC Approves VA Sales Practices Rule

By Staff Writer

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The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is gearing up to impose new regulations on variable annuity sellers.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange approved a FINRA VA sales practices rule Friday, according to SEC officials.

The new FINRA VA suitability rule will affect broker-dealers that sell deferred variable annuities.

The new rule will require broker-dealer firms to:

- Make sure that a client actually needs a deferred variable annuity, rather than some other product.

- Set standards for principal review and create a requirement that broker-dealer firm principals review transactions before a customer’s application is forwarded to the issuing insurance company for processing.

- Establish and maintain specific written supervisory procedures reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the standards set forth in the proposed rule.

- Develop and document training policies or programs designed to ensure compliance with the requirements of the rule and salespersons’ understanding of the features of deferred variable annuities.

“The new rule applies to sales to all investors and not just to seniors,” SEC officials say.

The SEC also issued an exemptive order to help implement the new FINRA VA suitability rule.

The order will permit FINRA members to hold customer funds for up to 7 days while complying with the new principal review requirements without the firms becoming fully subject to Exchange Act Rule 15c3-3. Firms that hold customer funds longer than 7 days while conducting suitability reviews must maintain higher levels of net capital, officials say.

Representatives from groups such as the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va., wrote letters to the SEC suggesting that a new VA suitability rule was unnecessary and that enforcing existing broker-dealer sales practices rules would be the best deterrent to bad market conduct.

Officials at FINRA, which previously operated under a different name, said they believed the existing informal approach to enforcement had not been effective enough at curbing VA sales abuses.

A copy of the SEC order approving the FINRA VA suitability rule is available ‘>Document Link

A copy of the exemptive order is available

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