fi360 Blog

Last day for pre-release discount on revised AIF Web program

If you have not yet taken the AIF training program, tomorrow is the last day to purchase it at the $995 price.  Go to the AIF training program page to learn more, or just go directly to the register page.  On Wednesday morning, when we release the new program, the price will be $1450. 

View the press release from earlier this month for more details about the updates.

FPA resolution supporting fiduciary Standard of Care for members

On Friday, FPA President Mark Johanessen released a message regarding the FPA's resolution addressing fiduciary standards for financial planners.  He quotes the standard:

All financial planning services will be delivered in accordance with the following standard of care:

• Put the client's best interests first;
• Act with due care and in utmost good faith;
• Do not mislead clients;
• Provide full and fair disclosure of all material facts; and
• Disclose and fairly manage all material conflicts of interest.

Johannessen goes on to promise that the standard of care will be publicly promoted and reaffirmed on request from consumers.  He also mentions upcoming recommendations from the FPA Best Practices Task Force for "additional guidance and interpretation for members on how to live to a fiduciary standard in a variety of financial planning situations."  In case you have forgotten, the Task Force includes fi360 CEO Blaine Aikin.

The FPA also provides a community forum for discussion among members and the public, with a special thread now dedicated to the Standard of Care.  We encourage fi360 AIF/AIFA designees who are also FPA members or CFP^® certificants to make their thoughts known both on the FPA's site and in the comments section here.

AIF designees making their mark this week

A few AIF designees were in the news this week, as well as a few fi360 employees.  Every time one of our designees is recognized for their expert opinion or status, it is good for our entire community of designees.  Make sure you send us a notice at blog@fi360.com and let us know if you have been featured in a publication or on the web, we'd be happy to post it. 

• AIF designee Joshua P. Itzoe of Greenspring Wealth Management has written a book, titled Fixing the 401(k).  The book is written for 401(k) fiduciaries to diagnose problems in their plans and bring them up to snuff.  The Pension Risk Matters blog offers a review of the book.
• AIF designee David Todd Misenheimer of Gordon Asset Management, LLC in Durham, NC was named a regional mover and shaker by Business Leader magazine.
• Redding, CA's local paper asked fiduciary experts the question, "What does 'fiduciary' mean and why should investors care?"  Wouldn't you know it, AIF designees Lewis Chamberlain and Richard Kamorek were the first two featured answers.
• We'd like to recognize a few of our employees who were in the news locally, here in Pittsburgh.  CEO Blaine Aikin was profiled as a newsmaker and Andy Frommeyer and Heather Turns were recently promoted.  Good work team!
• Finally, as a reminder, we have free Legal Memorandaums available in our Fiduciary Store. This is the older version of our handbook that contains the full legal substantiations behind our Prudent Practices for Investment Fiduciaries.  This version does not include the UPMIFA substantiation included in the newer version, but is otherwise identical.  Still a very valuable resource, just click on the above link and follow the directions.  Make sure you enter the discount code, "legal."   

Fiduciary knowledge on the road

As the candidates are showing us again this election season, if you want to take your message directly to the people, nothing beats a good old-fashioned bus tour.  This week the NAPFA Consumer Education Foundation, TD Ameritrade Institutional, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine hit the road with their Your Money Bus Tour.  This year-long bus tour is to help educate people on the importance of saving for the future.  New NAPFA chair Diahann Lassus said in a recent interview with Financial Planning magazine that making sure investors can identify someone who is managing to a fiduciary standard of care is a focus of their message on the tour.

Of course, the upcoming release of our updated Web-based AIF program is our way of taking fiduciary training to the masses of investment professionals out there.

Other good links:

• InvestmentNews has yet another report on how automatic enrollment options introduced by the PPA is changing the fate of many disinterested investors.
• With the constant talk about fees the past few years it shouldn't be a suprise that plan sponsors have started to listen.
• Pensions and Investments takes the best look we've seen yet at the proposed DOL exemption that would allow commission-based reps to offer advice directly to participants.

Fiduciary Links

The big news from last week is that the DOL released the long-awaited guidance to implement the investment advice provisions of the Pension Protection Act (PPA).  InvestmentNews, Investment Advisor, and Pensions & Investments are among those with stories covering this release.  However, very little coverage was given to the proposed class exemption for commission-based registered reps to act as fiduciary advisers and give advice to plan participants.  While the PPA had said advice could be given to participants on a fee-level basis, the DOL proposal allows non-fee-leveled advice by the fiduciary adviser under certain conditions. 

Among those who did comment on this issue are Rep. George Miller (D-Cal.) who was vocally opposed to the guidelines, and PlanSponsor.com's Nevin Adams, who doesn't think anything in these new guidelines were that suprising given what it was working with in the PPA.  Make sure you check for fi360 CEO Blaine Aikin's take on the exemption in his upcoming InvestmentNews Fiduciary Corner column on September 9.

Other interesting links:

• While it has taken two years for rules proposals on investment advice for the PPA to surface, check out the August 28 press release from Vanguard for their study on how the auto enroll features are already proving successful.
• If you are an adviser and a blogger, beware of Finra and the SEC
• The University of Toronto's Rotman Business School's new study finds that increased fee disclosure isn't enough, now investors need to know how to interpret them.