The Trump administration’s latest deregulatory push has opened the door for financial advisors, RIAs, and broker-dealers to weigh in on which federal rules they believe should be pared back — or eliminated altogether.
In a move aimed squarely at reducing the compliance burden across the financial services industry, the Office of Management and Budget, in conjunction with the General Services Administration, has launched a public-facing platform where advisors can submit recommendations for regulations they believe are outdated, overly costly, or misaligned with constitutional principles.
Through a dedicated portal on Regulations.gov, industry professionals can now nominate specific rules—or portions thereof—for formal review. The initiative is a direct outgrowth of the administration’s broader effort to roll back regulatory expansion and streamline federal oversight.
In its most visible iteration to date, this campaign invites stakeholders to critique existing or proposed rules across all sectors, with a particular emphasis on justifying their elimination. Submissions must address why a regulation should be reconsidered, citing legal infirmities, economic inefficiencies, or obsolescence as grounds for removal.
This campaign represents an opportunity for wealth managers, compliance officers, and firm leaders to highlight the areas where they believe the regulatory burden disproportionately outweighs the public interest served. For financial advisors and broker-dealers, longstanding frustrations with compliance-heavy mandates—many of which have grown in complexity since the Dodd-Frank era—may now be aired with the prospect of genuine reform.
Among the most frequently mentioned candidates for rollback within wealth management circles is Regulation S-P, recently updated to impose tighter restrictions on how firms handle and safeguard client information. While the spirit of the rule—protecting investor privacy—is broadly supported across the advisory community, the implementation costs and compliance overhead have raised concern, especially among smaller firms without dedicated legal teams.
Similarly, broker-dealers have expressed growing unease with the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), a sweeping data-collection system designed to capture and analyze virtually all equities and options trade activity in the U.S. securities markets.
The CAT project, which aims to provide regulators with a comprehensive, real-time view of market behavior, has been criticized for its enormous cost, cybersecurity risks, and ongoing implementation delays. Many within the brokerage industry question whether the regulatory benefits justify the billions spent to bring the system online, and several stakeholders may now see an opportunity to lobby for its repeal or restructuring.
The deregulation campaign also follows a White House directive requiring federal agencies to eliminate ten existing regulations for every new rule they promulgate. This executive mandate, combined with efforts by several administration-aligned task forces to downsize key regulatory bodies, signals an aggressive posture toward scaling back federal oversight across a wide swath of industries—including financial services.
Stephen Ehikian, the acting administrator of the GSA, framed the initiative in terms of economic freedom and entrepreneurship. “America thrives when people can challenge burdensome rules that threaten their freedom and livelihood,” he said. “Overregulation stifles innovation and hurts small businesses.”
The financial industry has echoed similar sentiments. Trade groups and lobbying organizations are now preparing to respond en masse, viewing the administration’s approach as a rare chance to recalibrate what many see as a lopsided regulatory equation. In particular, heavily regulated industries such as banking, insurance, and investment advisory have begun circulating internal lists of the rules they believe should be reformed or rescinded.
For wealth advisors, this represents a pivotal moment to bring their voices into the national policy conversation. The Investment Adviser Association (IAA), which represents a wide cross-section of SEC-registered advisory firms, has already engaged with policymakers to advocate for a more principles-based, proportionate regulatory framework.
In a recent letter to the SEC’s acting chairman, the IAA urged the commission to coordinate with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to reexamine the application of anti-money-laundering (AML) rules to RIAs—arguing that the current regime imposes bank-style requirements on advisory firms that do not handle client assets directly.
The IAA also called for an extension of the compliance deadlines associated with newly adopted rules and recommended a more tailored approach to oversight that reflects the specific business models of fiduciary advisors. In short, the association is encouraging regulators to adopt a nuanced posture—one that considers both the intent of investor protection and the operational realities facing advisory firms.
This deregulatory window may also reopen conversations around fiduciary standards, custody rule modernization, and Form ADV disclosures—each of which has been the subject of regulatory debate in recent years. Advisors, particularly those operating independently or through small RIAs, may wish to highlight the cumulative compliance burden imposed by overlapping rule sets across the SEC, FINRA, and state regulators.
The administration’s deregulatory framework is rooted in a philosophy that smaller government and lighter-touch regulation will spur economic growth and increase competitiveness. For advisors navigating an increasingly complex compliance landscape, this philosophy offers a temporary chance to push for changes that would align regulatory structure more closely with practice realities.
It’s a moment of both risk and opportunity. While the potential for significant reform exists, advisors and firms must tread carefully when framing their arguments. Regulatory rollback must still prioritize investor protection and market integrity—values that underpin the long-term trust necessary for advisors to thrive.
Some compliance professionals have already expressed concern that aggressive deregulation could create a patchwork of inconsistent rules that might prove more challenging in the long run. For example, removing federal standards without replacing them with coherent state-level frameworks could introduce new legal uncertainty for multi-state advisory firms.
Others warn that scaling back oversight too sharply may eventually prompt backlash, especially in the event of a high-profile fraud or failure linked to diminished regulatory scrutiny.
Still, the immediate task for wealth professionals is clear: identify and articulate the specific rules or procedures that most impede day-to-day operations, and present those concerns through the proper channels. Submissions to the Regulations.gov portal require a concise rationale, ideally backed by real-world examples of how a particular rule imposes unnecessary cost or complexity.
The administration has indicated that public input will play a significant role in shaping its deregulatory agenda moving forward. While it remains to be seen how many of these proposals will translate into formal rulemakings—or actual repeals—the process itself presents a rare, direct line of communication between advisors and federal regulators.
Firms that want to participate should consider coordinating their input through trade associations or industry coalitions, as collective voices tend to carry more weight in Washington policy circles. Additionally, legal and compliance teams should carefully review submissions to ensure that they reflect not only firm interests but also investor protection considerations and broader industry standards.
In the end, this is less about a wholesale dismantling of regulation and more about recalibration. For fiduciary advisors, many of whom already operate under high standards of care and transparency, the real value lies in reducing redundancies, aligning rules with business models, and fostering a more navigable compliance environment.
Whether it’s through exemptions, reinterpretations, or outright rescission, the current regulatory review offers advisors a chance to shape the contours of a more efficient, more responsive oversight regime.
The platform is live, the invitation has been extended, and the questions now belong to the profession: Which rules no longer serve their purpose? Where has compliance grown disproportionate to the risk? And how can regulation better reflect the evolving nature of advice?
For wealth management professionals long mired in regulatory inertia, the moment to engage has arrived.
