A Family Affair

News doesn’t slow down much in the summer, especially with a new president and the start of a hotly debated regulatory regime for advisors. I took a break from work and the unusual heat in the San Francisco Bay Area recently to go see the movie, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.” The movie’s title is a play on the “too big to fail” theme of the financial crisis.

The documentary tells the story of the Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings Bank in New York’s Chinatown district. They were accused of fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and were the only U.S. bank that faced criminal charges based on mortgage-related matters from the mid-2000s.

You could call the movie “Compliance on Steroids.” The film shows the painful process the family goes through. Lots of the bank’s top executives and family members are trained attorneys, one of whom was even working for Vance as he filed the charges against the institution.

The Sung family fights back. After five years and some $10 million in expenses on the legal battle, (spoiler alert) Abacus finds justice.

The movie shows what it’s like to run a financial services business, and it highlights in agonizing detail what today’s legal and regulatory climate is like for the small guys. I highly recommend seeing it.

Speaking of tough family situations, grief expert Amy Florian describes what Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has learned (and written about) after her husband died suddenly while they were on vacation. Florian skillfully explains how advisors also can learn from Sandberg’s experience with grief in order to work more empathetically and effectively with clients.

To boost their relations with both clients and prospects, as well as their overall results, advisors can turn to a variety of new high-tech tools and strategies, writes Jane Wollman Rusoff in this month’s feature story on marketing.