Steps taken to protect seniors

Senior Advisors know that it only takes a few bad apples to draw unrelenting scrutiny of everyone's actions. That is happening in the industry right now, and regulatory agencies have taken note. A new initiative has grown out of the atmosphere of fear, coming from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the North American Securities Administrators Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The organizations have announced an initiative with one goal in mind: to protect senior investors.

To accomplish the goal, the regulatory agencies are seeking out industry best practices to disseminate to the public and other financial services companies. They want to identify strong supervisory, compliance and other practices financial services companies use, especially in the following areas:

• Marketing and advertising to seniors.
• Account opening.
• Product and account review.
• Ongoing review of the relationship and appropriateness of products.
• Discerning and meeting the changing needs of the customers as they age.
• Surveillance and compliance reviews.
• Training for firm employees.

Once the initiative has found and identified best practices, the agencies will publish them so all firms can improve service to seniors.