Contributor: Rex Gooch

Without a doubt, regulatory reform is atop everyone’s minds. You simply cannot skim financial services news headlines without reading about a new regulatory order or rule – whether it’s the Volker Rule or new Dodd-Frank bill... regulators are essentially laying a “smack-down” on the financial services industry. Now that financial reform bill HR-4173 has been passed into law, we can only anticipate that hundreds of new regulations and rules written by the Self Regulatory Organizations (SROs) will follow. We don’t know what those will look like and how much of an impact they will have but what we do know is that the SEC and FINRA are today scrutinizing retail activities more than ever and have made financial and organizational changes to execute and pursue more aggressive enforcement activities.... read more