{"id":22252,"date":"2024-08-02T21:29:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T21:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2024\/08\/02\/as-sec-onsite-exams-hit-fever-pitch-heres-what-rias-need-to-know\/"},"modified":"2024-08-02T21:29:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T21:29:40","slug":"as-sec-onsite-exams-hit-fever-pitch-heres-what-rias-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2024\/08\/02\/as-sec-onsite-exams-hit-fever-pitch-heres-what-rias-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"As SEC Onsite Exams Hit Fever Pitch, Here&#8217;s What RIAs Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/feeds.feedblitz.com\/-\/902244986\/0\/thinkadvisor\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.thinkadvisor.com\/contrib\/content\/uploads\/sites\/415\/2021\/02\/Waddell_Melanie-Illustrated-640x640.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.thinkadvisor.com\/contrib\/content\/uploads\/sites\/415\/2021\/02\/Waddell_Melanie-Illustrated-640x640.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"the-advisor bullet-summary\">\n<h3>What You Need to Know<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The onsite portion of SEC exams are back in full swing, says Amy Lynch. <\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s an uptick in such exams overall, the industry expert noted. <\/li>\n<li>What&#8217;s triggering more exams? An election year urgency by Gary Gensler, the agency chair.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"first-para\">Exams by the Securities and Exchange Commission that include an onsite portion \u201care back in full swing,\u201d according to Amy Lynch, founder of FrontLine Compliance. RIAs should expect the SEC to visit \u201cas it aggressively pursues its goal of conducting more exams,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s triggering more exams?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAn election year urgency and unprecedented new and proposed rules,\u201d according to Lynch. \u201cPlus, firms not having an SEC exam within the last four years should expect one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In March, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2023\/03\/14\/sec-getting-more-aggressive-with-advisor-exams-former-director\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SEC said<\/a>&nbsp;that it would start returning to onsite exams.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been seeing an uptick in SEC exams overall,\u201d Lynch told ThinkAdvisor on Friday. \u201cAll SEC exams now have an onsite component. The only question is when and for how long they are onsite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>SEC Chairman Gary Gensler&nbsp;\u201dis feeling the pressure now since his term could be ending, which is why recent staff changes were made in the Division of Exams,\u201d Lynch said in an email. \u201cThe pressure is on to get exams done for FY 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Which type of firms have not been examined in four years?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany new registrants have still not been examined,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cIn four years, an RIA can go through many changes by offering new products and services, growing staff, merging, acquiring, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An exam of a firm \u201ccan change and look very different under these circumstances,\u201d Lynch continued. \u201cSo, just because a firm had a clean exam 4 years ago, does not mean it will happen again if the firm were examined today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While budget constraints hamper the SEC\u2019s ability to \u201cever be fully staffed, especially when the industry is growing so fast,\u201d Lynch said, \u201consite exams are definitely shorter than they used to be; lasting days as opposed to weeks. Video communications in the post-pandemic world have changed how onsite exams are conducted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What You Need to Know The onsite portion of SEC exams are back in full swing, says Amy Lynch. There&#8217;s an uptick in such exams overall, the industry expert noted. What&#8217;s triggering more exams?&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[1],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/as-sec-onsite-exams-hit-fever-pitch-heres-what-rias-need-to-know.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}