Melanie Waddell at ThinkAdvisor covered the SEC's spring regulatory agenda, which Chair Paul Atkins framed as part of roughly 30 proposed rules this year and another 30 in 2027. Every item on the list is a proposal, with custody and off-channel communications changes slated for October. She asked which one advisers should be watching.
My answer was the custody rule. Of everything on the agenda, it is the one most likely to change how advisers operate day to day, because custody rules govern where client assets sit, who can hold them and how that gets verified. Disclosure rules change paperwork. Custody rules change operations, vendor relationships and client agreements.
The pressure behind it is crypto. Advisers have been asking for years for a clean answer on what counts as a qualified custodian when the asset is a digital token held at an exchange rather than a stock at a bank. A workable definition would let firms serve clients who already own these assets without improvising around a rule written for a different era.
The off-channel communications item matters too, given the scale of fines already issued, but firms can fix that today with policy and archiving. Custody is the one that needs the regulator to move first, and the one worth reading closely when the proposal lands.
Read the full article at ThinkAdvisor →
