Recently, I attended the Fi360 Conference in Scottsdale. The conference was excellent, and as you might expect from a conference affiliated with the Foundation for Fiduciary Studies, some of the sessions and much of the buzz between them revolved around the looming Washington re-regulation of financial advisors. The underlying message wasn't particularly encouraging.
Although it wasn't specifically on re-regulation, one of the most insightful sessions was given by compliance attorney Brian Hamburger. Ostensibly dispelling a series of widely held RIA compliance myths, Brian made one of the most poignant observations of the conference, when assessing the potential for a massive overhaul in advisor regulation (which I confirmed with a source close to the SEC): "The FPA/CFP Board/NAPFA coalition [the Coalition for Financial Planning] made a very strategic mistake," he said. "Until recently, the conversation in Washington was about whether we needed to change the way advisors are regulated. Then, the Coalition threw its hat in the ring , alongside FINRA, to become the advisor regulator. Suddenly the conversation moved from if we need it, to who would be the new regulator of RIAs."
