U.S. Plans Stiffer Rules Protecting Retiree Cash

Federal regulators on Tuesday proposed rules, more than four years in the making, to provide greater consumer protection for retirement savings, requiring a broader group of investment professionals to act in their customers’ best interests when handling their retirement money. The financial services industry can be a minefield for ordinary investors, who often cannot tell whether their advisers are putting the investors’ interests first; the legal term for this is fiduciary duty. The rules, proposed by the Labor Department, which oversees retirement accounts, are part of the Obama administration’s declared mission to support the middle class. The proposed rules would eliminate some of the loopholes that allow brokers to avoid acting as fiduciaries when providing advice on retirement money held inside accounts like 401(k)’s and in individual retirement accounts, which hold roughly $7 trillion, as estimated by the Federal Reserve. More in the New York Times here.