The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the North American Securities Administrators Association announced yesterday they will continue to waive the annual system fees paid by investment adviser firms to maintain the Investment Adviser Registration Depository system for two years.

The SEC and NASAA also announced a waiver of initial set-up fees for new advisors filing on the IARD. Separately, NASAA announced that for the next two years it is reducing by one-third the system fees paid by investment advisor representatives.

SEC chairman Christopher Cox said, “For the second year in a row we have good news about the costs of maintaining this important on-line investor protection system. In addition to continuing for two years the waiver of annual fees paid by advisers to support the service, we are waiving initial fees paid by new registrants also from Nov. 1, 2006, through Oct. 31, 2008. This is a savings for the industry and ultimately for adviser clients and the investing public more broadly.”

“The IARD system provides important information for all investors and provides streamlined registration procedures for investment advisers and their representatives. We are pleased that the system’s success has allowed us to grant a waiver of the investment adviser firm annual and initial fees and a reduction in the annual and initial fees investment adviser representatives pay to utilize this valuable resource,” said Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission and president of NASAA.

For the next two years NASAA will waive payment of initial and renewal IARD system fees by state-regulated investment adviser firms and reduce investment adviser representatives’ initial and renewal fees by one third. The initial and renewal investment adviser representative fee will be US$30, reduced from US$45. Borg said NASAA’s Board of Directors approved the waiver and system fee reduction and will continue to monitor the system’s revenues to determine whether future fee adjustments are warranted.

The IARD system is an Internet-based national database sponsored by NASAA and the SEC and operated by NASD in its role as a vendor. IARD provides a single nationwide database for the collection and dissemination of information about individuals and firms in the investment advisory field; and offers investment advisers and representatives a single source for filing state and federal registration and notice filings. The system contains the employment and disciplinary histories of more than 24,000 investment adviser firms and nearly 220,000 individual investment adviser representatives.