August 4, 2010
Please reconsider any changes to the suitability standard of consumer protection for investments. This is a critical area of determination of what most meets the consumers' needs and should not be replaced by a backward examination of what went wrong. In the case of a problem, surely there will be an examination, but suitability standards prevent the problems.
I believe my business to already be over-regulated and I am intensely conscientious as I do my best to discern my clients needs based on the information provided me by the client. I exert a great deal of care to implement plans that are suitable for the clients and their needs and my plans are further examined by my broker/dealer. We serve our clients well and believe the current practice to be a "best practice" and do not want it changed.
Recent history seems to indicate that retroactive examination does not always succeed in its efforts to prevent significant fraud and heavy losses to consumers. Perhaps review of suitability standards would have been more succesful in revealing the shortcomings of the failed schemes and prevented the massive fraud.