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Independent Broker/Dealers Warming Up To Social Media

Posted on June 18, 2010 by in Compliance

Like it or not, social media in financial services has been a recurring topic in the industry this year. The big question for FINRA-regulated registered representatives and SEC-regulated investment advisers is how to engage in social media activities without violating compliance rules (even after FINRA released its guidance on using social networking websites).

In the first significant step in the broker/dealer environment, Cambridge Investment Research announced that it plans to support their representatives’ use of social media by adopting compliance and monitoring software from Socialware.

Click here to read the announcement from Financial Planning Magazine online.

FPPad subscribers have read about Austin, Tx. based Socialware before and their tools that help advisers and representatives satisfy compliance requirements when using social media websites.

The fact that Cambridge is stepping up to the plate and giving the tentative green light to its reps means more and more financial professionals will be able to manage social media profiles to engage in conversations with clients and prospects.

Weitzman Sentenced To 97 Months In Prison; Be Vigilant Against Fraud

Posted on May 28, 2010 by in Compliance

FPPad has followed the story of Matthew Weitzman beginning in April 2009 when charges of “certain irregularities in a limited number of client accounts” were brought against him.

See our previous entries:

According to Ron Leiber at the New York Times (Ron and his family were former clients of Weitzman), Weitzman was  sentenced to 97 months in prison yesterday.

Click here to read the entry in the New York Times Bucks blog.

Again, I can only stress how important it is to have clearly defined processes as to how your firm fights fraud. Take the opportunity to tell clients what you do and how you keep staff responsible for the safeguarding of client assets. A dose of proactive communication can go a long way when so many stories are being published about advisers accused of stealing from their clients.

Upcoming Financial Adviser Webcast Series: Guide to Going Digital

Posted on May 10, 2010 by in Compliance, Professional Development

I joined a fantastic team at Revenue Architects to deliver a series of financial adviser webcasts to help advisers accelerate their online presence.

Revenue Architects is an expert network of independent marketing, sales, and technology professionals aligned to support the diverse needs for adviser revenue performance. All the details of Revenue Architects can be viewed on their website, http://www.revenuearchitects.com/

I’m presenting the Guide to Going Digital webcast with John Stone, CEO of Revenue Architects, on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 from 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (ET). The webcast details can be viewed here: http://www.revenuearchitects.com/events-and-webcasts/

FPPad readers are eligible for a 10% discount off the webcast registration. Enter the code FPPadDigital to receive your discount. The code is valid for all four of the events in the Financial Adviser Webcast series.

I hope you consider joining the webcast if you’re serious about growing your presence in the rapidly evolving digital world.

Smarsh, Socialware Partner to Command Social Media Compliance Market

Posted on May 4, 2010 by in Compliance

I’d like to be able to say that I saw this coming, but that’s not entirely the case.

Today, Smarsh, Inc. the leading email archive solution provider to financial advisers, and Socialware, a provider of social media archive and policy enforcement tools, announced a partnership to combine their respective technologies to provide one solution for messaging and social media governance and compliance.

Click here to view the press release on Smarsh’s website.

I’ve written about both Smarsh and Socialware before, and while each company’s products could help advisers comply with regulatory requirements when using social media, neither offered an all-in-one solution. Smarsh dominates the archiving market, but lacks coverage in the social media space. Socialware commands the social media space, but doesn’t specialize in compliant archiving.

So I view the partnership as a very promising relationship in support of an all-in-one social media compliance solution to satisfy FINRA and SEC regulatory requirements.

I hope to be able to check out the offering in the future and report back on its capabilities (either here or in my other media outlets).

Socialware Launches Social Media Archive Service, Rebrands Website

Posted on March 23, 2010 by in Compliance, Technology

I’ve made several mentions on FPPad about Socialware, an emerging provider of social media archive and policy enforcement tools, but I’ve yet to include a full feature of their services.

Today, Socialware announced several new initiatives to better serve the market of individuals and small and medium businesses (SMBs). The full announcement can be viewed on the Socialware blog.

What do these changes mean to advisers?

Read More…

Email Archiver LiveOffice Jumps Into Social Media Archiving Market

Posted on March 3, 2010 by in Compliance

In a press release yesterday, LiveOffice, an email archiving and compliance provider to financial advisors, announced the release of its LiveOffice Social Archive service.

According to the LiveOffice press release, Social Archive is:

the first social media archiving solution to capture and retain content from any public website, including popular social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as blogs.

Now I debate the statement that Social Archive is the first archiving solution (I’ve tweeted and blogged before about Arkovi Backups, Smarsh, SocialWare, and several others). Nevertheless, LiveOffice joins a short list of providers aimed at providing compliance solutions to registered representatives and independent RIAs who want to use social media websites.

Read the entire press release by clicking here.

Smarsh Customers: Be Patient, Network Outage Disrupting Website & Phone Services

Posted on February 19, 2010 by in Compliance

If you’re a Smarsh user, you undoubtedly noticed that email services aren’t working today. To add insult to injury, when their customer service number is called, the number isn’t working.

I first found out from Google Alerts I set up to monitor Smarsh, an email hosting and archive provider for the financial services industry. I saw this post on Compliance Insights, and then turned to Twitter for more information.

According to @roguebob and @safetyinnumbers, Smarsh is experiencing a severe network outage that has disrupted its website service as well as its VOIP phone system.

But the company contacted @safetyinnumbers and assured him that “emails are queueing and not being lost.”

Twitter appears to be the best source for updates at the moment, though the lack of network service obviously makes it difficult for the company to update its own Twitter account, @SmarshInc.

Get a Summary of FINRA’s Social Networking Webinar from Socialware

Posted on February 3, 2010 by in Compliance

Earlier today, FINRA held a webinar titled Compliance Considerations for Social Networking Sites. I had a schedule conflict, otherwise I definitely would have attended.

Thankfully, Chad Bockius of Socialware posted a summary of the webinar content plus the Twitter stream he generated during the event.

Click here to read Chad’s summary.

Surprise Audit Provision Dropped From New SEC Custody Regulations

Posted on December 17, 2009 by in Compliance

secAbout six months ago in response to the uproar over the Bernie Madoff fraud, the SEC proposed updates to the custody rule that would require RIAs who debit fees from client accounts to be subject to surprise audits.

Needless to say, this proposal did not go over well, especially when costs for surprise audits were estimated to be north of $8,000.

See previous posts on FPPad: Proposed SEC Custody Rules Could Cost Advisers Extra $8,100 and SEC Surprise Audit Proposal Likely to be Dropped According to FPA.

Yesterday the SEC passed new custody regulations, and the surprise audit provision for RIAs who only debit fees was dropped. In addition, the SEC published a custody matrix, if you will, defining the different adviser arrangements along with their respective duties and responsibilities.

The folks over at RIABiz posted more about the custody provisions, plus they included the custody matrix chart for reference.

Click here to view the custody matrix on the RIABiz website.

Proposed IRS Regulations on Cost Basis Reporting Open for Comments

Posted on December 16, 2009 by in Compliance

Back in October 2008 I wrote about a passage in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act signed into law that requires cost basis reporting by securities brokers (see the original FPPad post).

Today I learned from this AICPA Journal of Accountancy tweet that the IRS has posted proposed regulations titled “Basis Reporting by Securities Brokers and Basis Determination for Stock” available for viewing on the Federal Register website.

Click here to view the PDF in all its 141 pages of glory.

I don’t quite have the time to browse the proposal right now, but thankfully the folks over at the AICPA JofA just posted a good summary of the proposal.

Click here to read the AICPA’s JofA Regulations Proposed on Basis Reporting by Brokers.

Update 12/21/2009: Also read this article Brokerages face 2011 start date for reporting cost-basis info from InvestmentNews.

However, there’s no real insight as to what exactly the proposal means for independent financial advisers. Hint: It probably doesn’t change much of anything, as custodians are likely to bear the brunt of the regulatory changes. If anything, that means custodial fees likely will go up.

The comment period for this proposal is open until February 8, 2010 and a public hearing is scheduled for February 17, 2010. That will be a barn-burner of a hearing!