August 12, 2010
My wife and I have run a successful Financial Services practice in a small midwestern city for the past decade, and I have been in the insurance industry for 24 years. We hold several securities licenses between us, including Series 6,65, 7, 66, 22, and 63, plus all of the required insurance licenses. We have continuing ed requirements for all of these, and our compliance is scrutinized both through our regular meetings with our Registered Principal and our BD. We also submit business blotters on a monthly basis detailing each securities transaction that occured, file every piece of advertising we do, have each piece of client correspondence reviewed, and keep copious notes on our client meetings. All in the name of compliance. Because the compliance issues are so difficult when it comes to employees, we have chosen to "go it alone", so this means the time it takes to preform all of these compliance requirements comes out of our time, leaving us less time to serve our clients' financial needs.
Being forced into a fee only system would unfairly hurt those with fewer assets to invest, as their cost would increase rather than decrease. My clients do not object to sales charges or service fees because they understand that that is how we are paid for our advice. And addtional levels of compliance would unfairly favor the banks and large brokerage houses with deeper pockets, effectively destroying the small town personal touch we are able to give. Please do not create any more regulations for us. We are doing a great job for our clients, and that would placed in jeopardy.
Thank you
Brian Lauer