SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. (Photo: New York Law Journal)
Consumer groups are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to extend the comment deadline for the regulator's "sweeping" Regulation Best Interest and Customer Relationship Summary, or Form CRS, to allow enough time to test the new disclosures on investors and report the results.
"A fundamental premise of the Commission's proposed regulatory approach is that a summary disclosure document can be developed that will enable investors to better understand the differences between brokerage accounts and advisory accounts, including the standards of conduct that apply, and make an informed choice among the available accounts and services," the groups told SEC Chairman Jay Clayton in a May 21 letter.
The groups include the Consumer Federation of America, CFA Institute, Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, Consumer Action and the Financial Planning Association.
Until testing "verifies that this is a reasonable assumption — including with regard to the least financially sophisticated investors most in need of enhanced protections — we cannot fairly evaluate the Commission's proposal to maintain separate and unequal standards for securities professionals that the Commission has deemed to be providing essentially the same service, investment advice, through different business models," the groups wrote.
The SEC is taking comments on its three-pronged standard of conduct proposal — which includes Reg BI and Form CRS — until Aug. 7.
The Investment Adviser Association sent a separate letter to Clayton on May 25, also asking that the comment period be extended.
IAA stated that it applauds the Commission "for its commitment to conduct investor testing on the efficacy of proposed Form CRS." However, "because it is not at all clear that the results of investor testing will be received and made public by the Commission sufficiently before" the comment due date, in order "to permit analysis and comment, we respectfully request that the Commission extend the due date to provide enough time for commenters to fully consider and incorporate the results."
Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the CFA, told ThinkAdvisor on Wednesday that the 90-day comment period extension requested may not be 90 days after Aug. 7. "It depends on when the SEC completes its testing of the proposed Form CRS disclosures. I think it is quite unlikely that the disclosure effectiveness testing (as opposed to more general testing regarding investor confusion) will be completed before the end of the comment period," Roper said.
Whenever the agency "get[s] that testing done, and the results released to the public, we'd like the additional comment time to start from then."
