SEC's Clayton: Advice Standards Package Done by September, 'if Not Sooner'

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton told ThinkAdvisor on Thursday morning that the commission is “aiming to get [the advice standards package] done by September [2019], if not sooner.”

When asked by ThinkAdvisor on his way into the 2018 Financial Markets Quality Conference at Georgetown University in Washington if the agency’s regulatory agenda setting out plans to finalize a rule by next September is merely a “placeholder” as some industry officials have said, and that a final rule is expected in the first quarter of 2019, Clayton responded: “You hear a lot. I do not have a definitive timeline.”

The regulatory agenda “that comes out is a statutory requirement, where we’re supposed to put out what we’re going to do for the next year,” Clayton said. “It’s segmented into two areas, the short-term and the long-term, and Regulation Best Interest and related matters are on the short-term agenda. We’re aiming to get them done by September, if not sooner. We’re working on it virtually continuously.”