By Sheryl Rowling
SAN DIEGO — I am a fiduciary and I am ready to serve retirement investors.
The Secretary of Labor has been tasked with updating regulations to require fiduciary standards for those who provide advice or investments to retirement plans or those saving for retirement. The fiduciary standard – putting the clients’ interests first – does not currently apply to stockbrokers and other financial salespeople who are not Registered Investment Advisors.
Per the Committee for The Fiduciary Standard, “Families need access to trusted professional advice to help manage their hard- earned retirement nest egg, before and after retirement. However, under the outdated rules, many retirement savers are not receiving the objective advice that they need and expect. Current rules allow many financial intermediaries to put their own bottom line ahead of their clients’.
According to Sheryl Garrett, of the Garrett Planning Network, “Financial services companies have threatened that if they are required to act as fiduciaries and put their client’s interests first, they’ll refuse to work with those investors. They say those retirement savers – especially those with smaller or medium-sized retirement accounts – will suffer because they won’t have access to investment products or advice.”
To prove this threatening statement wrong, the Chair of the Committee for The Fiduciary Standard and Sheryl Garrett drafted a letter for financial advisors to sign showing that middle class Americans can indeed have access to competent, objective financial advice.
As a fee-only Registered Investment Advisor, I have signed this letter. Here it is:
As a financial advisory professional I am ready, willing and able to serve retirement investors, including those with more modest retirement savings, as a fiduciary, while embracing the following core fiduciary principles:
o I will put my client’s best interest first.
o I will act with prudence; that is, with the skill, care, diligence and good judgment of a professional.
o I will not mislead clients and I will provide conspicuous, full and fair disclosure of all important facts.
o I will avoid conflicts of interest.
o I will fully disclose and fairly manage, in my clients’ favor, any unavoidable conflicts.
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Sheryl Rowling is a certified public accountant, personal finance specialist, and principal of Rowling & Associates. She may be contacted via sheryl.rowling@sdjewishworld.com