IIROC issues guidance on designations

IIROC has issued a guidance notice for comment regarding the proper use of business titles and financial designations.

The notice identifies supervisory best practices that would improve transparency regarding the use of designations and associated services offered by registrants of IIROC-regulated firms.

In 2012, IIROC conducted qualitative research involving investors and investor representatives in order to determine whether business titles and financial designations influence investors’ decision-making process and expectations.

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This investor research built on IIROC’s previous survey conducted amongst IIROC-regulated firms and designed to better understand how they use business titles, as well as how firms supervise this activity.

“Protecting investors is core to IIROC’s mandate, and an important element of protection is helping to ensure that investors can make informed decisions,” says Susan Wolburgh Jenah, IIROC’s president and CEO.

“With the many titles in use, identifying best practices that are embraced and implemented by IIROC-regulated firms will provide investors with better descriptions and understanding of the services offered to retail clients.”

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IIROC is also preparing a glossary of common financial designations and certificates that will be made available on its website when the proposed guidance is finalized.

Dealer members, individual license holders and other interested parties are requested to provide comments on the draft guidance in the Notice by March 9, 2013.

Related documents include IIROC’s Use of Business Titles and Financial Designations notice, dated January 8, 2013.

Also read:

In pursuit of designations

The decade of designations

Alphabet wise, for more on how to use your credentials while marketing and prospecting

Are you compliant? 9 regulation tips from the OSC

The ultimate financial designation is…(The Globe and Mail), for more on how the plethora of designations now available has “diluted the value of any single one of them.”