Washington has been training its eye on fees and transparency for years now. But so is the industry. The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) is the latest organization to convene a group trying to make sure broker-dealers are giving investors fee disclosures they can understand, according to ThinkAdvisor.
NSTA has paved the way on this issue, forming a task force in 2011 to make it easier for 403(b) participants to compare retirement plan options by creating national fee and services disclosure standards in order to increase transparency within the 403(b) market. And in 2012 NTSA, along with its 403(b) Transparency Task Force partners, introduced the 403(b) Model Disclosure Form, the first transparency standard for disclosures concerning services and fees in the public school 403(b) sector.
The group NASAA has facilitated includes industry heavy-hitters, including:
- the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
- the Financial Markets Association
- Bank of America
- Edward Jones
- The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association
- LPL Financial
- Prospera Financial Services
- Wells Fargo Advisors
NASAA President Andrea Siedt in a Sept. 11 statement on the work the group will be doing said that it will be seeking ways to bring about “more meaningful disclosure” of the fees broker-dealers charge. She added that the group also plans to develop a model fee disclosure that is user-friendly and easily understood.
The formation of the group stems from a report NASAA released in April that found a lack of uniformity regarding how broker-dealers disclose their fees. The report also said that some disclosures are not useful, even though they may meet the letter of the law regarding the information they must provide.
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