In recent years, the financial planning profession has been focused on the development of a fiduciary standard for financial advice, to protect the public from the harm done by those who claim to act in their clients’ best interests but actually make recommendations to benefit themselves. However, the reality is that the recent challenges of fiduciary have extended beyond just the delivery of financial advice; since the financial crisis of 2008, the issue has also extended to the duty that Wall Street investment banks owed to those they sold securities to (even when the company “knew” the investments were dogs at best, or at worst actually bet again their customers for profit). Other fiduciary concerns that preceded the financial crisis have also been highlighted in recent years, such as the obligation of investment managers to vote the proxies for stocks they hold in the interests of shareholders. The good news in all of this is that the public backlash against a wide range of damages the financial system and corporations have inflicted upon the public is raising the focus on fiduciary simultaneously across multiple channels. The bad news is that the fact the fiduciary is so wide in scope appears to be making it extremely difficult to implement with practical regulation.Read More...