(January 17 – 12:00 ET) – The Mutual Fund Dealers Association hopes to receive formal recognition as a self-regulatory organization by July 1 of this year, says its president and CEO, Joe Oliver. It applied for recognition to the Canadian Securities Administrators on December 22. Under the current timetable the MFDA

The MFDA’s proposed rules will be available for public comment in early March. The public comment period will run 60 days, following the usual CSA rule-making procedure. Assuming that no material changes are required, the MFDA aspires to SRO status by Canada Day.

Although the proposed rules won’t be available until the CSA finally releases them in March ,the MFDA has issued a summary of those rules. That summary is available on the MFDA’s website.

A few of the rules cover:
ÿ four levels of dealer that will be introduced;
ÿ the new capital requirements;
ÿ permissible dealer-rep relationships;
ÿ the rules that will govern dealers’ procedures.

The MFDA will allow principal-agent relationships to continue, as long as the dealer acknowledges liability for the rep’s actions. But, commissions will have to be paid directly to reps, not to corporations.