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Improve Plan Sponsor Conversion and Increase Revenue with ParticipantDirect

How Does This Help You? How This Helps Participants? How This Helps Plan Sponsor? We always explain to our clients that Larkspur-RiXtrema apps have two goals: Help you win more plans Help you make more revenue from those plans by providing valuable services To help you win plans (goal #1) we enhanced Larkspur Executive with such formidable marketing machines such as Custom Trackable Marketing Letters (CTML) and most importantly Larkspur PRO and Larkspur Platinum. These features turn Larkspur Executive into a powerful mix of plan intelligence, plan executive contact data, and email marketing automation to create a sophisticated sales strategy, on Autopilot. We have had record signups for Larkspur PRO,...

5 Components to the Form CRS Examinations

Colin Ward

12 May 2020

5 Components To The Form CRS Examinations

What is the OCIE expecting by June 30th? 5 Compliance Components in the Form CRS Examinations There’s a lot more to learn about the CRS Form Form CRS may be the most challenging hurdle for Registered Investment Advisors and Broker-Dealers. Small firms, especially, may struggle to meet the Customer Relationship Summary because they do not have internal compliance offices to build the 2-page document. The SEC knows that most small firms need to consult outside compliance firms and expect the CRS Form, alone, to take around 23 hours to build and cost $6,000. I wrote before about why Form CRS will be a difficult hurdle, and I don’t want to...

Colin Ward

08 May 2020

How Does The COVID Crisis Mix With Corporate Debt

Look to the past, lest ye beware What do the Rating agencies say? Bond Market History doesn’t offer much guidance In previous articles, Yon and I analyzed the threat of the corporate bond market and the potential risk for heavily-leveraged corporations to fall into junk-bond territory. Indeed, it’s easy to point at oddly inflated graphs and ask if anyone else smells smoke. So, neither of us could say for sure whether the bond market was bloated or just a new normal. Nonetheless, a significant shock, like the Pandemic, had the potential to introduce stress and cause uncertainty. Read Colin’s September review of the Corporate Bond Market HERE. Look to the...

Gennady Prokofyev

06 May 2020

Risk Alerts Regarding Reg BI For Broker-Dealers And Investment Advisers

Two Risk Alerts were released by The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) for Reg BI and Form CRS on April 7, 2020. The Risk Alerts were issued to inform broker-dealers and investment advisers about the scope and content of initial examinations after the compliance date of June 30 for Reg BI and Form CRS. The Director of OCIE, Peter Driscoll, added, “We understand that this implementation will be on iterative process, and our focus will be on firms continuing good faith and reasonable efforts, including taking into account firm-specific effects from disruptions caused by COVID-19” On the next day, April 8, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)...

Colin Ward

04 May 2020

Journey Through The Liquidity Trap

The Pandemic is a Supply Shock It’s a TRAP! A Liquidity Trap! So, who provides the growth? Odysseus’ Choice More risk scenarios in Portfolio Crash Test Pro (Banner Below) In my native state, North Carolina, protestors gather to resist the Governor’s stay-at-home order. Regardless of your political leanings, we can agree that such gatherings are at least in part related to a collective frustration at the prospect of an economic crisis. Well, in addition to other quarantine coping mechanisms, I finished reading Circe by Madeline Miller that reminded me of Odysseus’ dilemma: to steer close to the 3-headed rock monster, Scylla, or brave Charybdis, a tremendous whirlpool certain to swallow...