Planning Groups Flex Lobbying Muscle

When the 111^th Congress convenes, Keller says, “financial services reform is one of its top priorities.” The economic crisis, he says, was “clearly not caused by financial planners; what we do know is that if the financial intermediaries that got us into this mess were putting the best interests of their clients first, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation.” So the three planning groups want to “make sure that in any movement or legislation that might seek to impose some uniform standard of care, that the interests of the public are represented and protected and that financial planning doesn’t get swept up in some broad legislation.”

The top executives of the three groups held their first “exploratory” meeting on December 3, and while no date has been set for the next meeting, Keller says “there is work happening at the staff level,” of each organization. “We’ll be continuing to work with the other two groups.”