But many people don’t realize that the rules financial professionals must follow vary, depending on where they work and what products they’re selling.
One of those federal regulations, which governs retirement plans, was just tightened: The Biden administration announced new rules on Tuesday that will require more financial professionals to adhere to the highest standards when providing financial advice about your retirement money.
The goal is to minimize conflicts of interest, or at least ensure that they aren’t influencing investment professionals’ advice that lines their pockets at the customers’ expense.
The changes, issued by the Department of Labor, which oversees retirement plans, close loopholes that made it easier for many investment professionals to avoid fiduciary status — including, for example, when workers roll over their savings from a 401(k) plan to an individual retirement account.
Those transactions, which totaled nearly $800 billion in 2022, weren’t always covered by these investor protections, even though these sums often amount to a person’s life savings.
Persons:
they’d, weren’t
Organizations:
Biden, Federal, Department of Labor