What does the Department of Labor’s proposed expansion of the fiduciary standard mean to your relationships with retirement plans, their participants and IRA investors?

As the financial industry gears up to stop or alter the rule, the fight actually may be less about fiduciary duties and conflicts and more about costs and loss. As an ethical and successful financial advisor, you can do math for your clients. If you can reduce a client’s plan costs by 35-50 basis points per year, you may be able to increase assets available for retirement security by up to 10% over 30 years. And if you can offer solutions capable of doing that for IRA transfers/rollovers, a huge market will open for you, and continue to reward you with loyal clients for two or three decades per case.

There are three ways an advisor can cut costs in an IRA by 35-50 basis points per year: