Association pushes for increased clarity of proposal for the benefit of financial planners and retirement savers.
DENVER (January 3, 2024) – The Financial Planning Association® (FPA®), the leading membership organization and trade association for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals, offered official comments on the U.S. Department of Labor’s Proposed Retirement Security Rule. The comment letter is available here.
“While our comment letter expresses particular concerns regarding the implementation timelines and the necessity for clear guidance and compliance tools, FPA strongly believes in those initiatives that bolster the protection of retirement investors and build trust in financial service providers while not placing undue burdens on the practitioner community,” said Patrick D. Mahoney, FPA chief executive officer. “Our comments to the Department’s Proposed Rule reflect our Association’s belief that any rulemaking must be comprehensible to our Members, feasible in practice, and ensure that consumer access to products and services aligned with the best interests of retirement savers are unhindered.”
Comment letter highlights:
- The Proposed Rule makes several changes to the current regulatory framework that will require significantly more time for meaningful analysis and comment.
- The increased legal costs may negatively impact some of FPA Members, particularly those that are small businesses and that lack in-house counsel or full-time compliance professionals.
- The current Proposed Rule may increase costs so as to inadvertently decrease Americans’ access to much needed advice — which would only create a new problem for Americans to the extent that higher compliance costs may impact consumer access to advice. This needs further review to discern validity, which would be helped by a sufficient implementation period.
- Additional time is needed to examine the Department’s impact analysis considering our current regulatory framework and financial landscape in place today.
- FPA made several formal requests, including:
- The Department release implementation guidance prior to and/or with the publication of any Final Rule.
- Clarification (and/or definitions) of certain inconclusive language and undefined terms.
- The Department extend the effective date (Implementation Period) and a phase-in approach for enforcement with an emphasis on education-oriented enforcement for at least the first year.
- FPA offered support for the Department’s recognition that the titles financial professionals use do mean something and can be misleading to consumers.
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About the Financial Planning Association
The Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) is the leading membership organization for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM professionals and those engaged in the financial planning process. FPA is the CFP® professional’s partner in planning by helping them realize their vision of professional fulfillment through practice support, learning, advocacy, and networking. Learn more about FPA at financialplanningassociation.org and on Twitter at twitter.com/fpassociation.