Advisors are coming under much more scrutiny lately as new services have been rolled out, giving the investing public access to detailed information about financial professionals.
On Tuesday, the beta version of KYFA.com went live, promising users the ability “to search, connect, communicate and evaluate financial advisors.”
On Aug. 30, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) introduced AdvisorReport, which allows the public to dig into the education and disciplinary record of any IIROC registrant.
The Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) is taking a different tack, teaming up with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) to provide a single point of access for clients.
“Hopefully, the CSA discipline check will become the place where clients can go to check on any information about their advisor, without having to know whether he or she is IIROC or MFDA,” says Shaun Devlin, vice-president, enforcement, at the MFDA.
The first phase of the CSA project involved just the cases that were under the jurisdiction of the provincial securities commissions. Phase two will include disciplinary decisions handed down by the self regulatory organizations.
Devlin says the MFDA will be providing its information to the CSA soon but has no firm timeline for when phase two will be complete.
While the IIROC advisor check service provides information on the advisor’s education and designations, the MFDA site will not provide the same depth of information, as it does not register its approved persons.
“People at IIROC firms are also registered with IIROC, so IIROC has the data on its people, and it’s making that data available on its website,” says Devlin. “We don’t register people, the CSA does, so that’s why we’re referring clients to their site.”
Because the SROs do not have exclusive disciplinary power over their registrants, Devlin says an MFDA enforcement list would miss discipline actions taken by the provincial securities commissions.
The MFDA site will consist of two search options: one for concluded cases, which will search the more complete CSA database, and one for pending cases, which will search the MFDA’s list of hearing notices.
A final phase may blend the two databases into a single search.
He also points out that the CSA is best positioned to provide disciplinary information on advisors who have moved between the IIROC and the MFDA, as well as from province to province.
“It includes only concluded cases,” says Devlin. “The pending cases are not on the CSA discipline check. That data is on our website. The cases go on as soon as a notice of hearing is issued. We’ll have to make that available to people who are interested.”
(09/09/10)