Chief among state securities regulators' "aggressive" legislative agenda this year will be giving the Securities and Exchange Commission the authority to collect user fees to fund advisor exams, as FINRA is still pushing to have an SRO bill introduced, Heath Abshure, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, said Tuesday.
Speaking at NASAA's legislative agenda press briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, Abshure, the Arkansas securities commissioner, said that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority had not abandoned its efforts to become the self-regulatory organization for advisors, despite comments made recently by Richard Ketchum, FINRA's CEO.
Rather than pushing an SRO bill within the House Financial Services Committee, FINRA "is changing its strategy," Abshure (right) said. "We are going to stay on guard" for FINRA to push the SRO issue this year.
In a separate conversation with AdvisorOne after the briefing, both Abshure and Steve Irwin, the Pennsylvania Banking and Securities commissioner, said that while FINRA did indeed "revise" its SRO plan to focus on Senate SRO backers, Senate Banking Committee members are waiting to see how the incoming SEC chairwoman, Mary Jo White, takes to the SRO idea before agreeing to sponsor such legislation.
The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing to consider White's nomination next Tuesday.