The Consumer Federation of America has come out swinging in favor of the Department of Labor's proposed fiduciary rule.
In its latest foray, CFA has targeted three separate arguments made by the financial industry against the proposed rules, saying that rule makers can "safely ignore" them "as the last gasp efforts of industry to maintain a status quo that has been hugely profitable for them, but far less beneficial for the working families and retirees who struggle to afford a secure and independent retirement."
That was how Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at CFA, opened her statement at the public hearing. She went on to explain.
The first argument, she said, is that the industry "supports a best interest standard, just not the apparently fatally flawed best interest standard" that is currently being deliberated.
Following that argument, she said, industry representatives "argue for broad new exemptions" for certain segments of the market, which would "recreat[e] … precisely those loopholes this rule was intended to close."
