"We'd expect the result to be different if it was limited to CFP professionals," she says.
Nonetheless, the survey found that advisors with a mixed client base--i.e., foundation and endowment accounts thrown into the mix, or when planners added wealth management or wealth managers added retirement planning to their repertoire--scored higher.
"I think that's because people who work with a mixed client base have a well-defined process that they apply no matter which client they serve," Trone says, "and that lines up with a fiduciary standard."
Indeed, survey respondents who said they have a defined investment process scored an 81 on the index, while those who said they have a defined process for some clients scored only 66 and those who have no investment process scored a 49.
The Future Of Fiduciary
The 208-page SEC study mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act attempted to address the basic problem that many investors are confused about the different standards of care that apply to broker-dealers and investment advisors.
Congress told the SEC to evaluate the effectiveness of existing legal or regulatory standards of care when providing investment advice to retail customers, and to determine if there are any legal or regulatory gaps, shortcomings or overlaps pertaining to standards of care that should be addressed by rule or statute.
The SEC's study, which was released in January 2011, recommended applying a uniform fiduciary standard of care for both investment advisors and broker-dealers. The top officials at the SEC, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association--along with leaders at various broker-dealer companies--have publicly supported a uniform standard.
The SEC study says a new uniform standard should be flexible and accommodate different existing business models, fee structures and account models, and it shouldn't decrease investors' access to existing products or services.
But as the old saw goes, the devil is in the details. Industry officials have been lobbying Congress and the SEC with their two cents about what they think a uniform standard should look like.
"We support a uniform standard of care, but it needs to be carefully adopted and adapted to the different business models of broker-dealers and investment advisors," says David Bellaire, general counsel and director of government affairs at the Financial Services Institute (FSI), a trade group for independent broker-dealers.