NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a change to Regulation S-P: Privacy of Consumer Financial Information and Safeguarding Personal Information, which could impact credit union investment programs, according to the National Association of Credit Union Service Organizations.

SEC's proposed amendments would set forth more specific requirements for safeguarding information and responding to information security breaches.

Guy Messick, NACUSO general counsel, said page 40 of the proposal describes the protocol when a registered representative leaves one brokerage firm for another. The representative is referred the bulk of their business by the bank and credit union and such information is often treated as trade secrets with the representative acknowledging that the representative does not own the book of business, he said.

NACUSO intends to comment that it is fine to permit this limited disclosure for the purpose of implementing the agreed protocols between broker-dealers but the permissive sharing of information between consenting parties does not supersede the right of other parties to prevent the sharing of information that the parties agree is trade secrets or is otherwise deemed such by applicable law, Messick wrote in a May 6 regulatory alert.

The SEC's proposal can be found at the following link http://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2008/34-57427.pdf.