Jasmin’s Publications

Retirement planning is a great way to save and secure for your future. Despite small businesses employing nearly half of the American workforce, only 53% provide retirement plans. If you as an employer choose, we have recommended some options for retirement plans that work for small businesses, including education, SIMPLE IRAs, SEP IRAs, and 401(k).

Following the precedent set by the EU AI Act, US compliance officials should consider a risk-based approach to balance innovation and protection.

Learn how President Biden's executive order on AI aims to protect Americans from potential risks and what compliance officers can do in response.

Here are my three key lessons from NSCP about AI in personal and professional life, the pace of regulatory change, and the importance of quality data.

Learn about the EU's seven principles of ethical AI and how they can help compliance officers responsibly implement AI tools and systems.

There are numerous applications and benefits of AI in financial services, including compliance monitoring, risk management, and regulatory reporting.

What does the regulatory future look like for gamification and other digital engagement practices? That remains to be seen, says Jasmin Sethi on our Brain Waves blog

True investor protection involves proactively creating a predictable regulatory regime.

“Let me talk about how AI has impacted my life in three ways – reading, searching for information, and navigation. In all of these areas, I utilize a combination of AI and human intelligence. However, I would not mind the day when AI could be used alone when necessary, and human intelligence could be a choice – a supplement to improve my experience but not necessary for essential functions.”

Did you know that financial services regulators use AI to help detect fraud and possible misconduct? Jasmin Sethi highlights use cases of two regulators.

Written by the SCA team and published in Advisor Perspective.

As the blockchain ecosystem develops and new cryptocurrencies spawn, investors are attempting to diversify their holdings to effectively capture the crypto market. After investors determine how much of their portfolios they want to dedicate to cryptocurrencies, a question soon follows: Which cryptocurrencies should constitute those holdings?

A fixed annuity also known as a MYGA can be a smart investment choice for those looking to diversify their portfolios while earning higher than bank deposit rates.

Investing in cryptocurrency comes with many risks. While some risks, like extreme price volatility, have become well-known and well-understood by the general public, others remain obscure and leave retail investors potentially vulnerable. From June 2020 to June 2021, 13% of Americans purchased or traded cryptocurrencies, according to a University of Chicago survey.

The paradox brought about by digital trading platforms is that digital nudges, also called behavioral prompts, have the potential to both aid and hinder investors. Nudges can positively influence investors by encouraging behaviors--like saving--that benefit investors and serve their personal goals.

In addition to the robo-advisors discussed in Part I and Part II of our series, traditional investment companies, including Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, Schwab, and Merrill have developed their own robo-advisory services.

Customer Relationship Summaries, also known as Form CRS, are a key accompaniment to the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest, or Reg BI, which governs the standard of conduct for broker/dealers. As of last year, broker/dealers, Registered Investment Advisors, and dually registered firms must provide each client, or prospective client, with the firm’s Form CRS.

In this piece, I review three additional robos: Albert, Ellevest, and Stash. Overall, each of these robo-advisors provide a distinct experience with the objective of helping individuals in different circumstances save for retirement (and other goals, but we focus primarily on retirement here) through a streamlined and convenient process.

Those who do not have the workplace infrastructure to help save for retirement can benefit from digital advice.

Last November, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that could pave the way for these platform workers—commonly known as gig workers—to receive equity compensation just like employees and other categories of independent contractors.

Robo advisers can be very practical and efficient for investors. While robos generally are beneficial as they often invest in low-cost funds and ETFs, ideally, they should also include quality single-premium immediate annuities (SPIAs) and deferred-income annuities (DIAs) to simplify investment planning and allow retirees to spend more.

Retirees are often faced with the fear of outliving their assets. This fear, also known as longevity risk, has been eased by the availability of annuities, specifically annuities that I’ve termed in my paper as guaranteed income products, or GIPs, that offer fixed payments until death.

Congress has been devoting a lot more attention to annuities lately--and with good reason. As discussed in a recent Morningstar paper, some annuities that we call GIPs, or guaranteed income products, fill a role that is sorely lacking in the retirement investment catalog: They supplement Social Security by providing stable streams of income during retirement.

While political commentators can debate whether the administration is centrist or leftist, the important question for those concerned about policy over politics is what is the most effective and practically feasible way to solve many of the social and economic problems causing and resulting from the tremendous amount of inequality in the US. In some areas, a public option has been suggested as the solution.

In this article, we’ll walk through how regulation can be one of three things for a company’s business: an opportunity; an obstacle; or a risk.

We believe that some policy ramifications of the GameStop/Robinhood uproar are likely. Here's a look at some of the possibilities and trade-offs.

The only way to make an impact on the race economic gap in the US is to understand that it is derived from several factors that comprise the gaps in status across society.

In 2020, the SEC took steps to advance both investor choice and investor protection. Now, the new SEC chair will have to determine if the former has gone too far in hindering the latter.

Fund directors may face several repercussions from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposal regarding fund disclosure, as evidenced by comments sent to the agency from asset managers and industry stakeholders.