(Washington)

Advisors are mostly a conservative bunch, so many are incredulous of the current political polls. Others just don’t want to think about a Biden presidency. That said, if oddsmakers are right and the Democrats take over in a January, a strict new fiduciary rule is likely on the way much faster than almost anyone in the industry suspects. The reason why is the method the Democrats are likely to use to make a new rule. While all of us have seen how slow the rulemaking process has been at the DOL and SEC—and have probably thought of that as the status quo—Barbara Roper from the Consumer Federation of America pointed out this week that instead of crafting a new rule, democrats are probably just going to use the existing Reg BI framework and modify it.

FINSUM: Using an existing rule infrastructure and just beefing up parts of it would be a much quicker process than crafting a new rule. We might have a strict fiduciary rule by June 2021. You have been warned.