SEC wants industry data as it shapes fiduciary proposal

Regulators plan to ask investment advisers and others to provide data about the costs and benefits of the financial advice business, as the Securities and Exchange Commission continues on its path towards devising a uniform standard of care for investment advisers. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro told reporters in Washington on Friday that the commission currently has no way to collect such information, which it needs to complete their ongoing regulatory-impact analysis. She said the data request will come out soon, but declined to specify a time frame. “It's sort of like a concept release,” Ms. Schapiro said in describing the agency's plan to ask for cost data. She spoke to reporters after delivering a 30-minute speech to securities regulation professionals, during which she didn't mention fiduciary duty. More than a year ago the SEC delivered a report to Congress that recommended a universal fiduciary duty for advisers and brokers. The earliest a rule is expected out is this fall, but the continuing analysis could delay a rule until next year. A Labor Department proposal to expand the definition of “fiduciary” for anyone providing advice about retirement savings investments was abandoned in September after widespread industry and Capitol Hill opposition. In her speech about the agency's progress since the financial crisis, Ms. Schapiro highlighted the agency's “new national exam program” for investment advisers and others, which now has standardized materials and uses risk-based targeting. The number of significant findings from examinations rose by a third since 2009 to 42% of exams last year. Exams that lead to enforcement referrals are up to 15% from 10% two years ago, she said. The commission brought a total of 735 enforcement actions last year, including about 100 financial crisis-related cases against entities and mostly senior executives, she said. “It should come as no surprise that there are more actions to come,” she said. Ms. Schapiro also said about 1,200 hedge fund and other private fund advisers have registered with the SEC so far as a result of SEC rules put in place to meet provisions in the Dodd Frank financial reform act. These funds are providing “critical system risk information that can give regulators better insight into their practices.”