Sara Hansard
Most advisers and brokers agree that all professionals giving financial advice should be required to put the client's best interests first at all times — the traditional fiduciary standard — according to a new survey.
Life insurers are concerned that legislation the House Financial Services Committee is likely to approve after Thanksgiving will increase costs substantially for the 28 carriers that have assets of more than $50 billion.
Insurers with at least $10 billion in assets would be required to pay into a federal fund to cover the costs of resolving failures at financial services companies under legislation to be taken up next week by the House Financial Services Committee.
The House Financial Services Committee this morning unanimously approved legislation that would create a federal insurance office within the Treasury Department. The legislation is part of a broad financial services regulatory reform package that is scheduled to be voted on next week by the full House of Representatives.
Marathon Asset Management LP has completed an initial closing of an investment fund established under the Public-Private Investment Program, the Department of the Treasury announced today.
Now that the Department of Labor is scrapping a rule proposal that would have allowed brokers affiliated with financial-services firms to provide advice to 401(k) participants, Congress will move forward with legislation that would require that such advice be given by independent advisers, according to a key congressman.
In the coming months, state securities regulators will focus on increasing the threshold for state regulation of investment advisers to $100 million, according to Texas securities commissioner Denise Voigt Crawford.
House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized the Obama administration's decision yesterday to scrap a Bush administration rule that would have allowed investment advisers to provide advice to 401(k) plan participants.
A proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission that would require advisory firms that hold custody of client assets to be audited by accountants that are inspected by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board would cost each firm an average of $200,000, according to one new estimate.
