AdvisorGroup Tag

Embattled brokerage argues SEC copied a FINRA case

14:43 19 August in In the News by rafferty

August 18, 2022 By Tobias Salinger, Financial Planning   Alpine Securities, a brokerage fighting expulsion from FINRA and pursuing legal cases against its last two CEOs, has a new skirmish: A separate SEC matter it says should concern the whole industry. Salt Lake City-based Alpine Securities has gotten mixed results in its lengthy and repeated run-ins with regulators. One affiliate under common ownership prevailed last year over FINRA when the SEC overturned a previous enforcement case. However, the brokerage also coughed up a civil penalty of $12 million because of a federal court's decision in another SEC case accusing the firm of anti-money laundering failures. And a different judge quickly tossed Alpine's lawsuit against FINRA last year alleging that hearings on Zoom violated its rights. Its current SEC and FINRA cases revolve around the company's conduct as a brokerage that clears trades of stock in smaller...

At sketchy brokerages, FINRA is now part of HR

18:18 02 September in In the News by rafferty

September 2, 2021 By Lynnley Browning, Financial Planning Bad brokerages all too willing to look past an advisor's checkered past have a new hoop to jump through before potentially bringing them on board. Under new rules that began on Sept. 1, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, is forcing brokerages that want to hire financial advisors with sketchy records to undergo a “consultation” with the agency. The potentially uncomfortable sit-down could force a brokerage to apply for FINRA’s blessing to hire those brokers — with no guarantee the regulator would say yes. The brokerage industry's watchdog has new rules designed to rein in rogue brokers. The rules from FINRA, a self-regulating watchdog overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, affect firms that want to hire a broker who within the past five years has acquired...

Midsize firm ProEquities picks custodian’s BD over its own

14:21 24 June in In the News by rafferty

June 22, 2021 By Tobias Salinger, Financial Planning A midsize wealth manager seeking to expand its advisory business is taking a novel approach from rivals by outsourcing broker-dealer services to its custodian. It’s a move that falls into the industry’s ongoing trend away from commissions and toward advisory fees, and illustrates a new twist in firms’ hunt for costs to cut as business models change. The move by ProEquities to replace itself with Pershing Advisor Solutions as the introducing BD for its primary type of RIA account, the Advisory Management Plus Platform, follows several years of discussions and due diligence among the firm’s executives on the best “transformational path” to take away from its “old transactional model,” according to ProEquities President Elizabeth “Libet” Anderson. While unrelated, the first wave of some 7,200 accounts...