{"id":462818,"date":"2026-06-05T19:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462818\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T19:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:14:10","slug":"uyeda-sec-focused-on-ria-fiduciary-process-not-product-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462818\/","title":{"rendered":"Uyeda: SEC Focused on RIA Fiduciary Process, Not Product Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Securities and Exchange Commission may be down to two commissioners, but Commissioner Mark Uyeda took time this week to encourage registered investment advisors that this version of the SEC trusts their judgment in working with clients over what he called \u201cprescriptive\u201d government regulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe client is trusting you in your professional judgment,\u201d Uyeda said at the Robinhood and TradePMR Synergy26 advisor conference<\/a> held in Washington, D.C. \u201cWhat is the risk tolerance? What are the investment objectives? … Are these still the client\u2019s goals and objectives? And then try to find products successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uyeda added that government regulators should not dictate the products fiduciaries recommend to clients. He harkened back to the 1980s, when Massachusetts banned retail investors from buying Apple stock, deeming it too risky.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have the most high-risk futures on real property on Mars, but that\u2019s part of the diversified portfolio,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s just a small part, who is the government to say \u2018no, no, that shouldn\u2019t happen\u2014the right amount is zero.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:LPL Financial Faces Lawsuit Over Phoenix Annuity Sales<\/a><\/p>\n

Uyeda was distinguishing between SEC-regulated retail clients for advisors and workplace retirement-plan advice that falls under the Department of Labor and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The DOL is currently reviewing comments on a proposed rule<\/a> that would ease the path to alternative investments in 401(k) and other retirement plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The former SEC chair under the Biden administration, Gary Gensler, was more outspoken about regulating certain areas of investments, especially cryptocurrency, and led a more active enforcement regime. Current SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has sought to integrate digital assets into markets and the regulatory space, dismissed prior enforcement actions,<\/a> and reduced the number of SEC investigations overall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dan Gallagher, a former SEC commissioner and current chief of legal and compliance for Robinhood, asked Uyeda if he had \u201cany advice\u201d for audience members who were compliance heads or working in compliance for RIAs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want the essence of fiduciary duty, and perhaps this is how AI would summarize it: basically, don\u2019t lie, cheat or steal from your clients,\u201d Uyeda said. \u201cThe CCOs (chief compliance officers) are the frontline staff to oversee that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said regulators have lost sight of that bigger picture and \u201cbecome too prescriptive\u201d in enforcement in areas such as Rule 206(4)-7, known as the compliance rule, which considers whether firms have set and maintained compliance policies.<\/p>\n

Related:RIAs Face This Week’s Reg S-P Compliance Deadline<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMost important, I look at fiduciary duty as a process,\u201d he said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean you get a certain designated output\u2014\u2018This product\u2019s okay, this product is not.\u2019 Fiduciary duty has a duty of care, you\u2019ve got a duty of loyalty, and a duty of disclosure.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of earlier this week, smaller RIAs had to comply<\/a> with changes to Regulation S-P that expanded firms\u2019 responsibilities for safeguarding customer data. Firms with over $1.5 billion in managed assets had a Dec. 3, 2025, compliance date, while firms below the threshold had to meet this week\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

Uyeda said the SEC is aware that many RIAs are small and people \u201cwear many hats,\u201d including for compliance. He said regulators who are looking into firms after a negative trigger event will assess whether processes were in place, updated, and followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve constantly questioned our staff: When I see a Rule 206(4)-7 charge, why are we charging this?\u201d he said. \u201cThe easiest situations are those in which there was no compliance policy in place \u2026 or you can have perfectly reasonable policies and procedures, and there can still be an underlying problem or incident that merits enforcement, but that doesn\u2019t mean those policies were deficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallagher agreed with the approach being taken by his former colleague.<\/p>\n

Related:DOL Rule to Ease Alternatives in 401(k)s Draws Over 37,000 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI worried for a while that CCOs were easy targets, especially on the advisor side with the compliance rule \u2026 it\u2019s good to know there\u2019s something more rational,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Securities and Exchange Commission may be down to two commissioners, but Commissioner Mark Uyeda took time this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":["post-462818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}