A group of consumer and financial organizations is asking the SEC to move forward carefully, but expeditiously, in its rulemaking to extend the fiduciary standard to broker-dealers.

In a letter to the SEC, the organizations warned that ill-advised rulemaking could cause more harm than no rulemaking at all. At the same time, the organizations advocated for the SEC move forward in the lengthy process. The SEC has said the economic analysis of the rulemaking will be done early next year.

The economic analysis will apply to the uniform fiduciary rules the SEC is developing to apply to broker-dealers who provide retail investment advice. Currently, broker-dealers do not have to meet the fiduciary standard that is applied to advisors.

The letter asks SEC Chair Mary Jo White to ensure that the commission’s economic analysis of the proposal will be “well-reasoned” and “lay the groundwork for a strong, pro-investor policy.”

The commission has “gone astray” in these and other areas and therefore “has been unable or unwilling over the past 25 years to develop a rational policy framework for the delivery of personalized investment advice to retail investors. We urge the commission to rectify this problem now,” the letter says.

The letter, which was released Tuesday, is signed by the Consumer Federation of America, Fund Democracy Inc., Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, the Financial Planning Association and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.

“We have all long advocated for a uniform fiduciary standard that would, consistent with Section 913 of the Dodd-Frank Act, apply to broker-dealers when they offer personalized investment advice to retail investors. With this letter, we want to make it perfectly clear that we believe a thorough, well-reasoned economic analysis will offer strong support for rulemaking,” the group said in a statement released with the letter.

“Past actions, and inaction, by the Commission have permitted broker-dealers to misrepresent themselves to the public as advisors without requiring them to meet the fiduciary standard that is appropriate to that role, and unsuspecting investors have been harmed as a result,” the group warned.

“American investors deserve to have their interests put first and adoption of a uniform fiduciary standard would immeasurably improve investor protection. Investors should not have to wait any longer to get the protection they expect and deserve,” the organizations said.

In the letter, the organizations laid out the elements that an economic analysis must have in order to be a good foundation for a fiduciary rule. Included in those elements are an accurate depiction of the differences between the suitability standard that applies to sales recommendations and the fiduciary duty that applies to investment advice.

Also, it must correctly identify the harm that is caused to investors because of a lack of a fiduciary rule.

“Appropriate economic analysis has the potential to promote more effective regulation. It will only achieve this goal, however, if it is based on a clear understanding of the problem regulation is intended to address, it accurately assesses the causes of that problem, and it fairly assesses the likely effectiveness of various possible regulatory approaches in addressing that problem,” the letter concludes.