August 24, 2010
Greetings:
Please accept my comments as guidance toward the critical Fiduciary (Standards) Regulatory Rules for Registered Representatives that are pending before the SEC.
As a Registered Representative for over twenty years I have labored under increasing layer upon layers of oversight regulations that have significantly increased the costs of conducting my business and reduced the valuable and finite time I can spend with clients.
As a Series 6 Branch Office I spends hours in compliance as I am reviewed twice yearly by my Agency Compliance Officer and have been routinely audited by my Broker Dealer. In addition to these audits are the files I must present monthly demonstrating my compliance to the coorespondence rules, gift rules, stationary rules, seminar rules, and advertising rules just to name a few. Little of these lead to a more secure and professional client-advisor relationship, but are a severe time constraint. Facing the possibility of additional regulatory oversight will surely accelerate any decision to eliminate the securities part of my business as it becomes less cost efficient and increasingly more onerous as a liability. This will hurt my clients and eliminate the "Best Interest" centric that I, and most other registered representatives, already operate under. We will no longer be available to our clients when they seek our advice and guidance.
Nothing I have seen in the proposed changes increases the protection to my clients that my diligence and ethical business practices, coupled with the stringent oversight of my Broker/Dealer under the current regulations, already affords them.
It will be ill conceived and self defeating to subject Registered Representatives to the vagueness of the proposed regulations, the increased paperwork, and the substantial increase in liability that the "moving target standards" create. The proposed rules will ultimately cost consumers more money and reduce the ranks of competant advisors available to those consumers, hurting those you seek to help.
The current standards, when applied diligently, are more than sufficient to assure the safety of the investing public.
Thank you for you attention to my thoughts and I hope your decision is truely "Investor Centered".
Sincerely,
Alan F. Rosenberg
Registered Representative