New Regulations for Financial Advisors

On April 6, the Department of Labor issued its final fiduciary rule for financial advisors handling retirement accounts.  The new regulation imposes a fiduciary standard for those advising retirement accounts.  The proposed regulations have been floating around for over a year now.  The fiduciary standard will require all advisors to act in the best interests of their clients at all time.  This has several ramifications.  It impacts compensation advisors are permitted to take, how they manage their own accounts against how they manage their clients, and a more robust conflicts of interest disclosure.  The practical byproduct of the final rule is that it increases the protections for the everyday client and will hold the advisor accountable for unsound decisions.  However, compliance with the regulations is likely to increase the costs for advisors not already operating under the standard.  This coupled with increased liability exposure under the standard may also mean that many advisors shift away from serving smaller retirement accounts, leaving those clients to massive brokerage firms and wirehouses.