The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors requested the resignation of a member of its compensation committee after he leaked a memo challenging its fiduciary standard to the media, according to InvestmentNews. 

Bert Whitehead tendered his resignation a day after it was requested by Robert Gerstenmeier, chairman of the fee-only financial advisors' trade group. 

In his memo, Whitehead, founder and principal of Cambridge Connections, was critical of a trend among fee-based advisors in which they charge "different fees on different types of assets, (which) results in an inevitable ongoing conflict of interest: the advisor is incentivized to invest more in stocks on which the client is charged a higher fee." 

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Nick Thornton

Nick Thornton is a financial writer covering retirement and health care issues for BenefitsPRO and ALM Media. He greatly enjoys learning from the vast minds in the legal, academic, advisory and money management communities when covering the retirement space. He's also written on international marketing trends, financial institution risk management, defense and energy issues, the restaurant industry in New York City, surfing, cigars, rum, travel, and fishing. When not writing, he's pushing into some land or water.