IAP roundtable to discuss risk profiling and retail advice

The Investor Advisory Panel (IAP), an independent committee of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), announced on Friday it will be jointly organizing a roundtable with the OSC Investor Office on Sept. 28 to discuss research commissioned by the IAP last year on risk profiling, and its role in the advice process.

Lindsay, Ont.-based PlanPlus Inc. was engaged by the IAP in March 2015 to perform research into the current practices in the Canadian marketplace that are used to determine a client’s risk profile and to evaluate these practices compared to best practices globally.

The roundtable will explore the findings of the PlanPlus research report and “provide insights on possible next steps to improve the risk profiling used in the retail investment advice process,” the IAP says in a news release.

“Members of the PlanPlus Inc. research team will join participants from the financial services industry, academia, law, government, regulatory and investor advocacy organizations for the roundtable, with a public report on the outcomes of the roundtable to follow,” the IAP adds.

The IAP notes that the researchers — Shawn Brayman, president of PlanPlus, and John E. Grable of the University of Georgia — received the Best Applied Research award at the Financial Planning Association 2016 Annual Conference in Baltimore for their work on risk profiling on behalf of the IAP.

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