As in “fiduciary” that is.

SEC Chairman Mary Shapiro has reiterated her commitment to create a “strong fiduciary standard” for all securities professionals.

Her pronouncement to the Consumer Federation of America on Thursday, December 3, stressed the need for a uniform across the board standard with the same licensing and qualification standards for all financial services professionals.

The problem with this of course is that most brokers today are a little bit of this and a little bit of that…part time broker and part time investment advisors, holding licenses for each. If, or when the new standard goes into effect, (and that probably won’t happen until Spring, 2010, at the earliest given the debate over the legislation in Congress.) it will definitely be more difficult for advisors to continue to wear both hats–broker and fiduciary.

I’ve heard some firms are already reviewing and revamping internal procedures separating advice from product.If you want more info on this, a good source is the RegisteredRep December 1, article:

“It’s not good news for the traditional model of the retail brokers, and it probably makes the job substantially less fun,” says Brad Hintz, Sanford & Bernstein analyst and former CFO of Lehman, speaking of proposed reforms. “Because, if your job is to bring in assets, you’re going to be very limited in your ability to provide advice to clients.”