RIA Compliance and Practice Management Blog

Each Friday, we are giving you our weekly report highlighting the top compliance news articles from various industry news publications. We have selected the most relevant and important news articles related to registered investment adviser (RIA) compliance and regulatory issues. This week's recap focuses on some of the top 2022 regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the market’s response to a proposed Department of Labor (DOL) rule, a new bill which could require the SEC to allow e-delivery for regulatory documents, potential sweeping market reform from Chair Gensler and a look at the risk and opportunity of cryptocurrency.

Here are our top investment adviser compliance articles for the week of Dec. 16, 2022:

In compliance with Rule 206(4)-7, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires investment advisers to conduct annual reviews of their policies and procedures, ensuring the ongoing adequacy and effectiveness of the program. Annual compliance reviews, when done effectively, ensure your program is up to par with regulatory requirements, mitigating potential risk points to protect your firm and its clients.

However, even the best firms can make critical errors during their annual compliance review. To help prevent those problematic pitfalls, we’ve gathered our top pointers on how to avoid common mistakes made during annual compliance reviews. Ready to start reviewing? Let’s dig in.

You’ve made the decisions to start your own registered investment adviser (RIA) firm. Congratulations! But, now what? There are a multitude of factors to take into consideration when registering your firm, not the least of which is whether your firm will be registered with the state or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In this blog post, we’ll break down the top six considerations for those RIAs just starting out, highlighting key factors which will be crucial to setting your firm up for success in 2023 and beyond.

Communicating with clients is a must for financial advisers – and unsurprisingly the options for maintaining said communication seem to be ever-expanding.

In addition, client expectations for communication are shifting. Although 90% of clients prefer texts over phone calls, 45% of advisers still use phone calls as their primary means of contacting clients while 30% of advisers use email.

As an adviser breaking away from an existing broker-dealer or larger registered investment adviser (RIA) and setting out to establish your own firm, you have quite a lot to decide. Something you may not have considered: whether you should establish your firm and begin the RIA registration process before or after you have invested in an RIA compliance technology.

Recently, some advisory firms have begun investing in and implementing their RIA compliance technology before beginning the process of registering either at the state or federal level. Why? Let’s explore.

Each Friday, we are giving you our weekly report highlighting the top compliance news articles from various industry news publications. We have selected the most relevant and important news articles related to registered investment adviser (RIA) compliance and regulatory issues. This week's recap focuses on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) sweeping examinations of its communication and record-keeping regulations, how advisers will approach compliance in 2023, the SEC’s new Regulation Best Execution rule, how firms perceive the SEC’s environmental, social and governance proposed requirements and the SEC’s plans to overhaul the way stocks are traded.

Here are our top investment adviser compliance articles for the week of Dec. 9, 2022:

As of Jul. 1, 2022, registered investment advisers (RIA) making rollover recommendations must comply with the Department of Labor (DOL) PTE 2020-02 requirements, which includes retrospective reviews. In this blog, we'll discuss the challenges and opportunities of these new requirements and how RIA firms can better equip themselves to comply with DOL PTE 2020-02 requirements by integrating a compliance technology or software.

Back in November 2020, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) voted to create a model rule which allows NASAA members to implement continuing education (CE) credit requirements for investment adviser representatives (IAR) in their jurisdictions. This new rule was released in 2022, and a number of states are already implementing the requirements.

Each Friday, we are giving you our weekly report highlighting the top compliance news articles from various industry news publications. We have selected the most relevant and important news articles related to registered investment adviser (RIA) compliance and regulatory issues. This week's recap focuses on direct indexing, phishing attacks which are catching advisers off guard, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) risk alert about how firms are protecting themselves from identity theft and anticipated regulations for 2023.

Here are our top investment adviser compliance articles for the week of Dec. 2, 2022.

They say no man is an island. A theory which, applies itself quite suitably to a registered investment adviser (RIA) firm’s compliance program.

How?

While your chief compliance officer (CCO) may lead the compliance charge, they should, by no means, be an island unto themselves, solely responsible for the compliance strategy (and success) of your firm. In order to truly remain in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as well as state level regulatory bodies, a firm must define and support a culture which prioritizes compliance.