The Consumer Federation of America said Wednesday financial industry alternatives to the Department of Labor’s proposed fiduciary rule for retirement plan advisors fail to protect retirees.

An analysis of industry substitutes found they do not meet these crucial tests for investor protection:

• The best standard must apply to the full range of services perceived and relied on as objective investment advice by retirement savers.

• And, to ensure that it is not a best-interest standard in name only, it must be backed by restrictions on compensation and other practices that encourage and reward advice that is not in the customer’s best interests.

“Either the proposals retain existing loopholes that allow the firm to use disclaimers to evade the best-interest standard, or they provide a broad seller’s carve-out, which deprives retirement savers of protection when the conflicts are greatest, or they allow the firm to contract out of its fiduciary obligations,” said Consumer Federation Director of Investor Protection Barbara Roper.

She added none of the proposals mitigate the toxic conflicts of interests that pervade many financial firms.