News & Updates

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CFP Board Revises Sanction Guidelines and Fitness Standards

The CFP Board has finalized revisions to its Sanction Guidelines and Fitness Standards.

Former LPL Financial Advisor Fined and Suspended for Unauthorized Signat...

According to AdvisorHub, Justin Y. Gerow has been fined $5,000 and suspended for three months by the Financial Industry Regulatory Auth...

Recruiting Loans Drive Growth in Financial Planning Firms

Recruiting in the financial planning industry remains a crucial strategy for growth, with major firms like LPL Financial and Morgan Stanley lead...

FINRA Rule Protects Advisors' Private Addresses on BrokerCheck

FINRA recently implemented a rule allowing advisors to keep their personal home addresses off the public BrokerCheck database by simply checking...

Merrill Lynch and Bank of America Fined $3 Million for Failing to Monito...

Merrill Lynch and its parent company, Bank of America, have agreed to pay a $3 million fine and accepted censure from FINRA for their failure to...

Understanding the Role of Recruiting Loans in Wealth Management Growth

Recruiting loan balances can offer insight into a wealth management firm's growth strategy, but they do not tell the whole story. Industry compe...

Former Raymond James Advisor Fined and Suspended for Undisclosed Outside...

Andrew R. Hutcheson, a former advisor with Raymond James' Alex Brown division in Los Angeles, has agreed to a $5,000 fine and a 30-day suspensio...

LPL Financial Faces Potential $50 Million SEC Fine for Recordkeeping Fai...

LPL Financial faces a fine of up to $50 million from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for non-compliance with records preservation r...

FINRA Launches Pilot Program for Remote Branch Inspections

According to InvestmentNews, a total of 741 FINRA member firms have joined a three-year pilot program assessing remote inspections of b...

New Treasury Rules Impose AML/CFT Requirements on Investment Advisers

The U.S. Treasury Department has finalized anti-money-laundering (AML) regulations targeting investment advisers registered with the U.S. Securi...

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SEC Fines New Jersey Brokerage and RIA Firms $240,000 for Impending Clie...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fined Nationwide Planning Associates, a New Jersey-based independent brokerage, and two affilia...

Hightower Drops Claims Against Former Advisor Amid Non-Compete Dispute

Hightower, a Chicago-based RIA firm, recently dropped its lawsuit against former advisor Lars Knudsen just days before a federal judge in Illino...

Osaic Services Fined $250,000 for Supervisory Failures in Options Trading

Osaic Services, formerly SagePoint Financial, recently agreed to pay a $250,000 fine and accept censure for failures in supervising excessive an...

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