Jasmin Sethi, associate director of policy research at investment research firm Morningstar, is also studying the proposed regulation. Sethi says she believes the proposed rule “appears to be protective of investors, but it may not go far enough” to fully protect them.

In fact, revenue-sharing agreements create conflicts that are “often opaque and harder to evaluate” than most other sources of tainted product recommendations, the three Morningstar policy analysts wrote.

“It’s hard to imagine how you keep any kind of incentive to recommend one investment product over another and still be consistent with the rule,” said Jasmin Sethi, owner of Sethi Clarity Advisers, a compliance consulting firm.

“This release is very wide open,” said Jasmin Sethi, associate director of policy research at Morningstar and co-author of the firm’s comment letter to the SEC.

The SEC rule is vague about the line between sufficient mitigation of conflicts and the point at which disclosure is necessary, says Jasmin Sethi, founder and CEO of Sethi Clarity Advisors, a public policy consulting firm that has worked on behalf of clients including BlackRock and Morningstar.

That addition to the final rule "is a positive surprise," said Jasmin Sethi, an associate director of policy research at Morningstar, a data provider.

Watch Jasmin Sethi, CEO and Founder of Sethi Clarity Advisers, give a talk about how to "invest in yourself"”

The report, “Conflicts of Interest in Mutual Fund Sales,” builds off the Labor Department’s regulatory impact analysis used in crafting its fiduciary rule to gauge how effective the rule has been in mitigating conflicts of interest.

The Labor Department’s fiduciary rule reduced the amount of investor money that’s allocated to mutual funds that pay brokers a premium to sell them, according to a Morningstar Inc. report released Thursday.

Beth interviews Jasmin Sethi about Regulation Best Interest and opportunities and trends in fintech. Listen to learn about regulatory developments and strategies for managing through the changing standards.

Morningstar, for example, was accompanied by Sethi Clarity Advisers for its July 13 encounter with the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis.