As Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Galvin is the state’s top financial regulator.
Galvin, dissatisfied with the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest rule, or Reg BI, says that the SEC “has failed to enact a meaningful conduct rule to protect working families from abusive practices in the brokerage industry…” Galvin’s new regulation will go into effect on March 6. It requires “broker-dealers and broker-dealer agents to provide investment advice and recommendations without regard to the interests of anyone, expect the investor,” according to the Financial Planning article.
The SEC declined to comment for the article, but Barbara Roper of the Consumer Federation of America said the organization is disappointed in the “watered down” version of the regulation enacted by Galvin, adding it is not an adequate substitute for the Fiduciary Rule.