Trade Organizations

Trade associations in the investment advice sector can agree on one thing when it comes to politics: It doesn't make any sense for their political action committees to donate to presidential candidates.

National Public Radio listeners are hearing an advertisement that encourages them to turn to a financial planner for guidance on their investments.The NPR ad campaign, which began Monday and runs through mid-November, is the latest phase of an awareness campaign sponsored by the Certified Financial

The Financial Services Institute Inc. is planning to finance its beefed-up lobbying efforts with big dues increases to its broker-dealer member firms.

In an effort to halt that regulation and persuade the department to start over, the Financial Services Institute is going over Ms. Borzi's head and her boss's head, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, to President Barack Obama.

The frustration felt by advisers about the growing wave of regulation and failed attempts to influence policy erupted last week at a town-hall-style meeting in Las Vegas.

The potential for political upheaval on Capitol Hill following the Nov. 2 election has grabbed the attention of many financial interest groups — and has some preparing to change the targets for their advocacy efforts.

Exchange-traded-fund providers said last week that they are willing to consider joining a proposed ETF trade organization, but only if it could prove its value.

The Insured Retirement Institute last week chose James A. Shepherdson, executive vice president of Axa Equitable, as the group's chairman.

In a dramatic re-branding, NAVA Inc., the trade group of variable annuity providers, last week changed its name to the Insured Retirement Institute and its focus to serving “the insured-retirement-strategies industry and consumers who rely on those guarantees.”

Financial advisers across the country are creating networking organizations dubbed philanthropic advisers networks, or PANs, with the mission of helping advisers collaborate locally and also interact with philanthropists.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association of New York and Washington said today that its London-based European operation will be spun off and merged with the London Investment Banking Association. The new lobbying group, which has yet to be named, will represent the securities