The independent broker-dealer group that has come out in favor of registered investment advisors moving to FINRA supervision just got a very powerful friend in the industry.

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LPL has signed up all of its 12,600 broker affiliates to a free year of membership in the Financial Services Institute.

FSI is presumably already aligned with LPL's goals -- it's run by Bill Dwyer, who just happens to be LPL's head of marketing -- so this largely just beefs up the group's membership.

LPL reps get access to FSI communications and analysis of breaking regulatory topics. 

The move represents a fairly significant expenditure on LPL's part. Next year, its reps who choose to remain members will have to pay a discounted $99 a year to stay in the group, so we are looking at over $1.2 million in membership fees here.

Dwyer says the group is the only one focused on "the industry-wide advocacy needs of independent financial advisors" and that the stronger relationship is designed to "protect" advisors' ability to stay in business, regardless of compensation model.

Tags: investment advisors

In a few months, there should be an all-new networking group for advisors of color to share best practices, network, and otherwise help each other's careers in a largely white industry.

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George Clarke of Silver Spring, Maryland, is putting the finishing touches on the charter of a group he calls the National Association of Minority Retail Registered Representatives and Financial Advisors.

The group will reportedly roll out in the next few months. 

Clarke knows firsthand the value of cooperation in the industry. He previously worked at Edward Jones and then spent five years with J.P. Turner, only to leave that firm -- and his book -- in 2007.

Since then, he's slowly been rebuilding his business back to an AUM of around $1 million as an affiliate of W.R. Rice.

The group looks like it will have a somewhat broader umbrella than the existing Association of African American Financial Advisors, which doesn't publicize the number of members it currently has.

In theory, Clarke's group could reach out to Asian and Latin advisors as well.

As yet, it looks like the acronym for the group will be NAMRRRFA. Just a suggestion to save my typing fingers: since most registered reps are happy to call themselves "advisors" these days, how about just NAMFA?

Tags: broker-dealers | Dodd-Frank | financial planning | investment advisors | registered investment advisors | SRO

It should come as no surprise that the Board of Trustees of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) unanimously recommended that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) serve as the self-regulatory organization (SRO) to conduct examinations of Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment advisers.

"NAIFA believes the most efficient, cost-effective answer is to authorize FINRA to conduct all RIA exams," says the trade group's press release. "FINRA is already subject to SEC oversight, and it would be easier for FINRA to expand its current, substantial examination capabilities to cover RIAs than it would be to establish new SROs or significantly increase SEC exam programs."

NAIFA says it represents the interests of approximately 200,000 agents and their associates nationwide, whose practices focus on  life insurance and annuities, health insurance and employee benefits, multiline, and financial advising and investments. The organization in 1999 changed its name from the National Association of Life Underwriters. 

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Tags: fiduciaries | SIFMA

Having made its case on the topic of whether brokers should be given the same fiduciary responsibility as RIA reps, lobbying group SIFMA is now sparing few niceties blasting the Labor Department's fiduciary rules.

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The group -- which largely represents broker-dealers -- suggests that the latest regs on advisors who work with retirement accounts "must be withdrawn and re-proposed" to make exemptions for commission-based advisors.

Ken Bentsen of SIFMA warned a House panel that failure to make an exemption would put 7 million relatively small IRA accounts that are currently managed on a commission basis at risk.

He says advisors will dump these clients as no longer worth the effort.

One question: if the commission streams on an IRA with $5,000 in it are currently attractive, how much are these accounts trading?