Is this another blurring of the fiduciary standard?

This week, a look at the top of a story by Chief Correspondent Tobias Salinger. He took on a complicated classification in the industry — fiduciary advisors who have ties to brokerages.

It raises all kinds of questions about fiduciary objectivity. Read on below and at the link for the whole story.?

A prospective client speaking with advisor Bill Rabbitt recently posed the foundational query that more customers are asking these days.

"’Before we even talk, I have one question: Are you a fiduciary?' She said, 'I couldn't keep talking to you if I didn't ask you that question,'" said Rabbitt, the owner of West Hartford, Connecticut-based advisory practice WP Financial. "People are looking for that. They want that unbiased advice."

More financial advisors than ever before are answering in the affirmative with respect to every area of their advice. Planners like Rabbitt, though, represent a new and growing group of advisors: those who are registered only with a registered investment advisory firm — but one that also has an affiliated brokerage or uses the services of a company that has a brokerage.

Retail clients would likely struggle to grasp the technical classification of this group of RIA-only advisors who use the services of dually registered firms. The increasingly popular practice further blurs the lines of the conventional industry divide with brokerages, as companies like LPL Financial, Wells Fargo and Commonwealth Financial Network confront competition from aggregators and platforms. The new forms of RIA affiliation reflect more potential options for advisors but greater complexity.

READ MORE: How financial advisors are going full-RIA — with a 'brokerage'

Thanks for reading.