Industry

The Securities and Exchange Commission is expanding its New York office staff of 360 people by 33, or nearly 9%, in an effort to better regulate hedge funds and brokerages. The SEC will hire 18 additional people in enforcement and 15 in examinations.

As the race to rake in breakaway brokers continues to heat up, it seems that independent broker-dealers, are failing to spend on the areas of technology that matter most to independent advisors: customer relationship management and integration.

Merrill Lynch veteran Tom Isaacs is still waiting to see if Merrill will enforce a 60-day leave clause.

Citigroup has hired Sanjiv Sawhney as global head of fund services, a new position. He was previously head of fund services operations at JP Morgan and is returning to Citi, where he began his career and served for 15 years.

Financial advisors are looking forward to 2010. In fact, 68% of advisers recently surveyed define their 2010 business mindset as one of acceleration and growth.

Advisors believe many Americans could need double or triple their savings targets.

Less than half of advisors bill for advice on outside accounts.

UMB Promotes Macdonald, Outridge to EVP, COO

A chat with the new CEO at Raymond James Financial, plus other executive changes.

The Delaware company has added 18 wealth managers in the region in the past five months and wants to continue to expand organically.