Close Close
ThinkAdvisor

Financial Planning > Behavioral Finance

Planners Fight FINRA Expansion

By Allison Bell

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

Financial planner groups want Congress to put a national organization in charge of overseeing their profession – but they say the oversight entity should certainly not be the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

FINRA, Washington, “would have an inherent conflict of interest in this role, as it is a membership organization for the broker-dealer community,” according to the Financial Planning Coalition, Washington.

“As the regulator of securities dealers and transactions at the suitability standard of care, it lacks the experience, expertise, and understanding required to exercise appropriate oversight of a profession that provides comprehensive financial advice under the fiduciary standard of care,” the coalition says.

Groups backing the coalition include the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc., Washington; the Financial Planning Association, Denver; and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, Arlington Heights, Ill.

The non-FINRA oversight body that Congress does put in charge of planners should “set standards of ethics and competency for financial planners” and “establish rules to promote the fiduciary standard of client care when providing financial planning services,” the coalition says.