Financial Services Institute Pledges to Lead Effort to Replace DOL Fiduciary Rule
Financial Services Institute president Dale Brown pledged to “go on offense” to block implementation of the Department of Labor fiduciary and to advocate instead for “a uniform fiduciary duty” proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission while speaking at the independent broker-dealer trade group’s annual conference in San Francisco this week.
Many opponents of the Department of Labor’s rule believe that the Trump administration will delay the rule, which is scheduled to begin implementation on April 10th.
“Our opportunity with this unexpected change in political circumstances is to move into a proactive stance of advocating for the regulation of the way we want our business to be in the future rather than the defensive crouch we’ve been in for the last several years defending what we’ve done in the past,” said Brown.
The Department of Labor’s 1,023-page fiduciary rule maintains that those who provide retirement investment advice to plans, plan fiduciaries and IRAs are required to abide by a new fiduciary standard.
Proponents of the rule believe that the regulation is necessary to eliminate conflicts of interest in their advice, which the White House Council of Economic Advisers says costs investors $17 billion a year from their retirement accounts.
Opponents believe that the DOL is overstepping its bounds, and that the new rule restricts access to affordable retirement advice, limits saving options, and places a costly compliance burden on brokerage firms.
FSI, which represents independent financial advisers and financial services firms, has been a long-time and vocal opponent of the DOL fiduciary standard. The group, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Financial Services Roundtable and others, filed a class action lawsuit in June challenging the DOL and its authority.
