March 2, 2004
I am a Registered Representative with over twenty years of serving clients. I encourage you to not abolish the 12-1 service fee. If you did it would return our industry to an atmosphere of being transaction oriented as it was 20 years ago. Financial professionals use this service fee as a way to compensate for the reduced commissions over the last 10 years. It also a means to be compensated for providing true service in the form of retirment planning, estate planning, asset allocation, portfolio rebalancing and MUCH more.
Without this fee the only way to be reimbursed for these services would be to transfer assets into investment advisory accounts that would end up costing the clients much more than the 1/4 of 1- .25 that they pay now. That would be the atomsphere you would be creating. It would not be the best for the client because it would actually cost them more over time. Keep this industry moving forward and say yes to the 12b-1 service fee.