The Investor Advisory Committee, created last June by the SEC, held its first meeting on Monday. The committee announced its agenda yesterday, which is comprised of nine topics regarding investor protection. The most compelling issue on the committee’s agenda, industry professionals agree, is whether all financial intermediaries should be held to the same fiduciary standard.

Other topics on the agenda include:

• Whether information currently disclosed to investors meets their needs;
• Using technology to better improve the flow of information to and from investors;
• The distinction between financial literacy and financial education;
• Valuation, or whether investors fully understand the role that an underlying asset valuation plays in portfolio and fund valuations;
• Whether majority voting for boards of directors should be mandatory for all U.S.-based companies;
• More effective communication between investors and directors;
• Whether investors have all the information they need to make informed proxy voting decisions;
• And whether the SEC has the resources it needs to effectively protect investors.

Indeed, the fiduciary duties topic is the only one of merit on the committee’s agenda that will also impact investors’ lives, according to Dan Childress, president of Financial Management Group, a Mount Pleasant, S.C.-based investment advisory firm. “The others won’t have much of an impact on the investor’s life—other than to make it more complicated.”

Matters of technology, for instance, should be handled by the financial markets, which tend to dictate its use and development, Childress said. Whether technology can be used to improve the flow of information is something that the marketplace will control. “If technology is driven by regulation, then it will always be behind,” he said.

There is one other issue—valuation—that will receive a lot of attention from the committee, said Diahann Lassus, chairwoman of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. It touches on whether consumers, and even those who sell complex investment products, can reasonably be expected to understand how they work. “Many times in the past, we have seen examples where individual investors believed the “guarantees” of variable annuities meant that the value would never go down,” Lassus said.

The Investment Advisory Committee was formed to advise the SEC on matters concerning investors in the securities markets; provide investor perspective on current, non-enforcement regulatory issues; and be a source of information and suggestions to the SEC concerning its regulatory programs from investors’ point of view. Richard “Mac” Hisey, president of AARP Financial Inc. and AARP Funds, and Hye-Won Choi, senior vice president and head of corporate governance for TIAA-CREF, are co-chairs.

“We are looking forward to working with the committee when they have a need to reach out to the financial community for advice on how things work in the ‘real world,’” Lassus said.