Practice

Eighty-five percent of buy-side firms are unprepared for regulatory changes, a survey by MoneyMate, a data management firm, found.

FINRA has fined Jefferies & Co. $1.5 million, ordered the investment bank to repay $425,000 in ill-gotten commissions and fees and suspended a pair of its brokers for failing to disclose additional compensation to institutional clients and other conflicts of interest related to shady sales of auction rate securities between August 2007 and March 2008.

FINRA has fined UBS Financial Services $2.5 million and ordered it to pay $8.25 million in restitution for conduct related to the sale of Lehman Brothers Holdings principal protection notes.

While the banking industry clearly has momentum on its side in the fight to delay a rule that would limit debit interchange fees, time for Congress to act is rapidly running out.

Over the next few weeks B of A plans to roll out revised versions of smartphone apps, with more of a focus on under-the-hood improvements than on flashy new features.

Financial advisors Ian Jones and Peter Jones will focus on the Taft-Hartley market.

Despite the recent improvements in the economy, Americans continue to grow more pessimistic about long-term retirement prospects, according to a Country Financial survey of 3,000 adults.

We’ve all got that crazy uncle. Within the financial planning community, its Thomas Leonard.

I have a very simple question to ask all of you. Suppose, by some miracle, that you were given an extra two hours a week to spend in your office. How would you spend that time?

Forget reinventing the wheel. Just copy what other top producers are doing. Better yet, hire a coach who has already identified those “best practices” and then pay them a fee to share the ideas and hold you accountable for implementing them. Is that really the key to success as an advisor?