SEC Tilts Toward Keeping RIA Oversight, But Leaves Door Open To Help From Outside Hot

The report -- evidently a compromise between the three SEC commissioners who needed to sign off on it, days after the Dodd-Frank Act mandated that it was due -- simply lays out three possibilities without overtly advocating one over the others.

The SEC could go on supervising RIAs with enough assets under management to require federal oversight, albeit with added fees to defray the commission's costs.

Alternatively, FINRA or another self-regulatory organization -- newly created or deputized -- could take over the channel, as many planning groups have feared.

Finally, FINRA and the SEC could jointly regulate firms with dual registration, which would again probably lean toward FINRA taking these advisors off the SEC's cash-poor plate.

The commissioners are already bickering over how the report subtly encourages Congress to pick one plan or another, but at the moment, it just looks like the issue has been pushed down the road.

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FINRA reacts: "we're happy to help"

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110119-717979.html

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