Practice management

"Customers will go along with price increases if they think they are getting a fair value for the service," says Jens Baumgarten of Simon-Kucher & Partners.

Turbulent times demand tough action.

The repeal of the 3% withholding tax might actually make life easier for financial planners and their clients.

FINRA and the SEC issued a joint risk alert and regulatory notice Wednesday, advising broker-dealers to make sure they’re mindful of what’s going on within their branch offices and even offering some tips to ensure they remain in compliance.

Broadridge Financial Solutions has linked its fixed income processing platform in Canada to the country’s central securities depository through a new module called ClearancePro.

More than half of Fidelity's 11.7 million 401(k) participants are in plans that have automatic enrollment, up significantly from 16% five years ago. Furthermore, 73% of the plans Fidelity administers default their participants into lifecycle funds up from 11% in 2006.

Some 60 UBS Wealth Management Americas financial advisors will kickoff a three-month test drive this week of an iPad application designed to make it easier to interact with clients and access research reports — all in the hope of generating more assets under management.

The average price tag for a data breach now is $7.2 million. How are you supposed to value the loss when your crown jewels – trading algorithms – get put on data sticks or uploaded to remote servers, as happened to Goldman Sachs? And if you're a financial advisor or smaller advisory firm, how do you safeguard data while also taking advantage of social media and mobile devices to service your clients? Here's what you need to know and do to protect your firm and your clients.

Three-quarters of small business owners believe that so many Americans are financially unprepared for retirement that the problem has reached the level of a crisis, but only about a fifth of them actually offer their employees a 401(k) or similar plan, according to a new survey.

FINRA has sanctioned eight firms and 10 individuals for selling interests in private placement offerings “without having a reasonable basis for recommending the securities,” the regulatory agency said in a statement. The sanctions included ordering more than $3.2 million in total restitution.

Nearly two-thirds of plan sponsors have changed the investment lineup in their 401(k) plan in the past year, up markedly from a mere 20% in 2008, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America.

The team is taking about $1.2 million in production with them. The move makes Brancucci and Crossan managing partners at the practice, which has more than $100 million in AUM.

Linedata says that it has combined the risk analytics services of Riskdata with its Beauchamp portfolio management platform.

Transamerica Retirement Services has added 38 new stock and bond options to its investment platform for company-sponsored retirement plans.

The SEC has charged three investment advisors — OMNI Investment Advisors, Feltl & Company and Asset Advisors LLC — for failing to implement compliance procedures to prevent securities law violations. OMNI’s owner, Gary R. Beynon, was also charged.

An industry group has asked regulators to disclose the factors they will use to determine which muni broker-dealers pose more risks and should undergo compliance examinations more often under a new proposed exam program.

Risk management software firm Algorithmics has just launched a new risk reporting service for hedge funds in the U.S. and signed up fund of hedge funds manager Optima Fund Management in New York as its first client.

Fidelity Investments and Verizon have partnered to offer Verizon’s four million FiOS subscribers access to the Fidelity Market Monitor Application that, for no additional cost, will provide them with quotes, charts watch lists and news.

For financial planners, it means they might have to work a lot harder to get younger investors to recognize the value of investing in stocks.

Rep. Barney Frank, the influential Massachusetts Democrat who championed legislation that made such a dramatic impact on the financial planning industry, will not seek re-election next year, capping a 32-year career in Congress.