#mark egan

Even as President Donald Trump and Republican leaders seem set on a course to weaken Obama-administration consumer protection regulations, a soon-to-be-published study reports that 7.3 percent of financial advisors in the United States have been cited for abuses.

All financial advisors are required to disclose any whiff of misbehavior to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), an independent monitoring organization regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. A research team examined those records to determine the extent of wrongdoing, especially among financial advisors.

By examining this data in detail, they found that financial misconduct is widespread within the financial industry, with one in 12 financial advisors in the US censured for abuses.

“A LOT OF THIS IS DRIVEN BY CONSUMERS WHO LACK FINANCIAL SOPHISTICATION”

”These things are not frivolous,” says Mark Egan, an assistant professor of finance at Harvard Business School and a co-author of the study. “The average settlement is in excess of $100,000 and the median is $40,000. These are costly offenses.”

Included in the study was any record of customer disputes and civil cases settled in the favor of the client, criminal cases in which advisors were found guilty, and any firing for cause.