Financial firm I work for changed their tune about bitcoin today

Late last year when the first one of my clients started asking about diversifying into bitcoin, I sent a message to compliance asking them if we have a policy about offering bitcoin advice, guidance or have a plan to offer buying bitcoin on behalf of clients (many clients cannot even use their phone correctly but they have a lot of money).

The reply was do not discuss bitcoin at all, not positive, not negative. Tell clients we do not get involved in that.

Earlier this year I changed firms, and again I was told not to discuss bitcoin with any clients.

In the past few months we lost many clients because other firms including very popular trading firms are offering a way for people to invest in bitcoin. I am not referring to coinbase etc. I am referring to mainstream investment firms. Once they got the client for bitcoin they got them to transfer their entire portfolio there, some very large portfolios.

Today we were told that we will start offering a program to help clients invest in bitcoin, but no details yet. For now we should tell clients it will be out soon. We were also given permission from compliance to reach out to customers who asked (but not to those that did not ask) about bitcoin to let them know.

The saddest moments in my day is when a client walks in and tells me he wants me to sell off some shares because hes going to get into a "coin like bitcoin" aka shitcoin, on the ground floor.

Compliance does not allow us to talk anyone into or out of an investment unless they sign a 50 page waiver that says they won't hold us responsible. For the fund management aspect we have another batch of waivers they sign when they signup.

Submitted July 16, 2018 at 07:47PM by jchang23 https://ift.tt/2KWUaQe