Inspira More Than Prepared for SEC Rule Change

PITTSBURGH, March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Turnkey IRA solutions provider Inspira announced Friday that its offerings can be a solution to the compliance changes associated with the Securities and Exchange Commission's revision to rule 206(4)-2, also known as the "Custody Rule", which went into effect today.

The revision to SEC rule 206(4)-2 was issued in December 2009 to promote transparency from investment advisers and prevent devastating Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi schemes. A lack of fanfare surrounding this revision left advisers that were unaware of the ramifications searching frantically for a solution.

Inspira's turnkey offerings may be the most affordable and easiest solution to implement and maintain.

The revised Custody Rule requires Investment Advisors that collect fees from accounts to engage a custodian to produce quarterly statements for clients; and hire a qualified auditing firm to conduct surprise audits of the advisor's recordkeeping processes to ensure accuracy and the validity of the fees charged.

The revision gets sticky for certain recordkeepers and firms that roll up trades into one omnibus account and, within the recordkeeping system, then allocate portions of those accounts to shareholders. In the case of 401(k) plans that fall into this category, the custodians do not always send quarterly statements to trustees due to the additional servicing costs associated for the recordkeepers and their clients.  The greatest impact, however, is on firms that roll-up IRA or non-qualified accounts into an omnibus position.  The custodians for these types of arrangements cannot create their own quarterly statements because they cannot retrieve the necessary information without engaging an outside recordkeeper to perform sub-accounting functions.

Inspira's turnkey offerings utilize an independent recordkeeping solution for IRA accounts that can be employed to address this ruling.

"We take pride operating our business in an honest and completely transparent fashion," said Inspira President and CEO Lowell M. Smith Jr. "Our goal has always been to offer industry-leading solutions that rely on simplicity and are carried out with integrity."

Based in Pittsburgh, PA, Inspira provides third party administrators, financial advisors, affinity groups, broker dealers, CPAs and payroll companies with turnkey, cost-eliminating IRA solutions. Inspira was founded in 2002 by Smith Jr., who has 27 years of experience in the retirement and financial services industry, including nine years with the United States Department of Labor. Smith Jr. was also a primary architect in the development and implementation of retirement start-up Invesmart, Inc. Inspira is a subsidiary of Pittsburgh-based venture capital firm ABG Capital.

SOURCE Inspira