Checking a Registration or Professional Designation
If you are working with a financial professional, or someone is trying to sell you an investment, be sure to check them out before handing over your hard-earned money.听
Most securities firms, stockbrokers, investment advisers, and investment adviser representatives must be registered with the Securities Division in order to conduct business in South Carolina. Make sure your financial professional is properly registered. It is perhaps the most important step you can take to protect yourself and your money from a potential scam. Not all, but most scams involve unregistered entities, people and products.
While a single individual may be registered as a stockbroker, an investment adviser, an insurance agent or a commodities dealer, no one registry will tell you this. Investors must check multiple databases.听 Fortunately, there are several regulatory websites that allow you to do this.
- is FINRA's free online search tool that allows anyone to research the registration status of securities dealers and salesmen. BrokerCheck tells you whether a person or firm is registered as required by law to sell securities (stocks, bonds, mutual funds and more).听 BrokerCheck will provide you with a snapshot of a broker鈥檚 employment history, regulatory actions, and investment-related licensing information, arbitration and complaints.
- 听allows you to search for information about an Investment Adviser firm or investment adviser representative. Here you can view current registrations, employment history, and disclosures about certain disciplinary events involving firms and individuals.
- 听is maintained by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Before working with any person or firm to trade in commodity futures, commodity pools, options, forex, or other derivatives, verify the entity is properly registered with the CFTC.听
Since annuities are regulated as insurance products in South Carolina, consumers should check the registration status of their agent with the听.
The allows you to search by name for individuals that have been named in SEC court actions or administrative proceedings and had judgments or orders issued against them.听
For information about actions taken by the South Carolina Securities Division against investment professional firms or individuals, see the Enforcement section of our website.听
Understanding Financial Services Titles & Designations
Financial services professionals may represent that they have professional designations that can be confusing.听 While some of these titles or designations accurately reflect the person鈥檚 expertise, others may be little more than marketing tools designed to convey the impression that the holder has more knowledge or experience than they actually have. FINRA has a page called听听that lists each designation complete with a link to the organization that issued the designation. You can use this page to click through to an organization, check to see if the advisor really has the credentials they say they have and learn more about what those credentials mean.
- If a financial planner is telling you they hold the CFP庐 designation, you can go to听听page to type in an advisor鈥檚 name to find out if they hold this designation.
- 罢丑别听page allows you to search information collected by the SEC by Company or fund name, ticker symbol, Central Index Key (CIK), and more.
- The allows you to search and view, free of charge, Form D filings made with state securities regulators.
If you have additional questions about a registration, please give us a call at (803) 734-9916. If you would like to register a complaint with the Securities Division, please see our听online complaint form.听
Securities Contact Information
Office of the SC 黑料社区
Securities Division
P. O. Box 11549
Columbia, SC 29211-1549
(803) 734-9916
For overnight delivery:
Securities Division
Rembert Dennis Building
1000 Assembly Street
Columbia, SC 29201
