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Finra Warns B-Ds On Hiring Brokers With Spotty Records Living Large

16:57 22 January in In the News by rafferty

January 22, 2018 By Tracey Longo, Financial Advisor High-risk reps are finding it much harder to find a job these days, as Finra tightens the proverbial screws on firms that employ brokers with regulatory red flags. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has even begun calling firms that hire “high-risk” brokers to ask executives for explicit justifications for the hires. The threat made to firms, no longer even thinly disguised, is that hiring risky brokers will result in more frequent and far more rigorous Finra examinations for the B-D. The scrutiny is making it far tougher for any but the most profitable brokers to find a new firm if their regulatory record and background check puts them in Finra’s high-risk program hairs. If a firm runs the regulatory gauntlet and brings on a high-risk broker anyway,...

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The Subtle ‘Tyranny’ of Regulatory Overlords

19:23 15 January in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

January 12, 2018 By Jon Henschen, Intellectual Takeout Who really benefits from the 14,000 pages of Dodd-Frank? If you’re a business owner, you quickly learn the pains of regulation and how it impacts your ability to survive and thrive. Author and theologian C.S. Lewis framed the topic best when he said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” This description aptly describes the actions of governmental bureaucrats who make up...

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FINRA Plan to Rid BDs of Advisor Liability Would Hit Firms’ Fee Revenue

19:50 12 January in In the News by rafferty

January 12, 2018 By Melanie Waddell, ThinkAdvisor The plan would resolve BD complaints about paying large fines for RIA compliance failures, recruiter Jon Henschen says The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority plans to issue a proposal that would free broker-dealers from keeping track and maintaining liability for registered investment advisor business — a huge win for hybrid BDs — but they’d also be forced to take a hit to fee revenues. FINRA’s Board approved at its December meeting the publication of a regulatory notice seeking comment on changes to its rule on outside business activities that seeks to streamline BDs' obligations by “generally excluding from FINRA’s rule on a registered person’s personal investments and work performed on behalf of a firm’s affiliate,” and eliminate supervisory obligations for non-broker-dealer outside activities, including investment advisory activities at an unaffiliated third-party advisor. No...

With Pay Gap Shrinking, National, Regional B/Ds Surge

21:42 20 December in In the News by rafferty

December 20, 2017 Barron's National and regional broker-dealers out-grew the competition this year, in part by capitalizing on wirehouses’ recruiting pullback. The firms’ assets have climbed 9.1%, compared with 7.2% for the industry overall, according to Cerulli Associates. They’ve been emboldened to go after wirehouse advisors and their assets as the pay gap between the channels has shrunken. Culture is more than a buzzword, Cerulli’s research confirms: Of advisors who moved from a branch network firm in its survey, 75% rated culture as a moderate or major factor in their decision. Bureaucratic and impersonal cultures are a turnoff, the firm says. Also helping power nationals’ and regionals’ growth this year were European banks’ recent exits from U.S. wealth management, which loosed a flood of brokers into the recruiting market. ...