Market Regulation Services Inc. issued a statement on Friday indicating that media reports of merger talks between RS and the Investment Dealers Association of Canada are untrue.

In the statement, Bill Moriarty, chair of RS’ board of directors, said “there are no merger talks between RS and the Investment Dealers Association of Canada. The headline story in the February 25 edition of the National Post/FP is false”.

Talk of a merger between self-regulatory organizations tends to come and go. Indeed, IDA president and CEO, Joe Oliver, revived the merger idea at the IDA’s annual meeting in 2004.

As well, some people in the industry believe that the Mutual Fund Dealers Association will someday be absorbed into the IDA.

One element of the FP story that is true, is that the idea of the MFDA changing its name has been bandied about. The problem, according to one source, is that some fund dealers assume that the MFDA is a trade association as well as regulator. While this is the situation with the IDA, the MFDA is solely a regulator; and so, it may consider dropping the word “association” from its name.