For the second day in a row, a top executive in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations stressed that protecting baby boomer retirees is a key objective of the agency.

On Tuesday, it was the top official at OCIE, Director Drew Bowden. On Monday, at the same conference, it was Assistant Director Renee Esfandiary.

“A lot of them are coming into money for the first time in their life. Our job is to make sure those people are given a fair deal,” Bowden told the National Society of Compliance Professionals annual conference in suburban Washington, D.C.

Justifying his concern, he said that with boomers surging into retirement, more than one quarter of the investing public will be 65 and over.

He added, unlike their parents who often had defined benefit plans, more than 60 percent of boomers will rely on 401(k) plans for their retirement.

To protect them, OCIE examiners will be looking at what techniques advisors are using to convince retirees to move their 401(k) portfolios into other investments, notably high-fee structured and complex products that may not be suitable.

Bowden told the compliance officers that fraud is inevitable at financial firms and their duty is to detect it when it happens. “Good policies and procedures are not enough,” the exam chief warned.