(Bloomberg News) BrightScope Inc., the firm that rates thousands of corporate 401(k) retirement plans, is starting a Web site that will show disciplinary histories for financial advisors.

The firm will begin publishing today a database of registered investment advisors and brokers that displays customer disputes and terminations as well as assets under management, and eventually aims to publish performance histories and fee schedules that investors may search, Mike Alfred, co-founder and chief executive officer of San Diego-based BrightScope, said in an interview last week at Bloomberg headquarters in New York.

"We see this as part and parcel of a larger movement to provide transparency for consumers" in financial services, said Alfred.

The site, which is free to investors, has about 450,000 listings on its database, and includes most registered investment advisors and a majority of brokers, Alfred said. The firm will add listings for insurance brokers, who generally are licensed with their individual states, during the next 90 days, Alfred said.

It can be difficult for investors to tell whether the advisor they work with is actually any good at managing money, said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Washington-based Consumer Federation of America.

"It's not illegal to be not particularly competent," said Roper, who's based in Pueblo, Colo. In financial services, "to be drummed out of the business you do have to be guilty of fraud."

No Good Source

Currently, "there's no good source for someone to go to and see 'This is reasonable, this is what I should expect to pay if my account is this size,'" said Mark Cortazzo, senior partner with Parsippany, N.J.-based Macro Consulting Group, a registered investment advisor.

About 25% of investors are considering leaving their investment advisors in the next year, according to an April survey by New York-based Sullivan, an image-consulting firm, and New York-based market-research firm Northstar Research Partners. Respondents said that better investment performance would be their top reason to consider changing advisors.

"I don't think most people put a lot of thought into" choosing a financial advisor, said Mark Matson, chief executive officer of Mason, Ohio-based Matson Money Inc., which manages about $3.1 billion. "A lot of it is by referral."

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