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I work for a Mortgage Broker In Canada, and we are going to be regulated by the Securities Commission soon, just like financial advisors. This is to cut back on the number of illegitamite brokers out there. I am the admin assistant, I will not be required ro register, as I don't sell mortgages. Will my boss need to submit my name however in some kind of staff list? Could the Comission have demands such as all employees, even not registered ones must complete background and credit checks? Or will the commission even need to be aware of me, have nothing to do with my employment.

In most regulated industries, the regulated business does not necessarily give a list of employees to the regulating authority (hereafter referred to as "RA"), however, the RA can ask for that information if they are investigating something specific.

Generally speaking, employees of a regulated business have to be trained on how to do their jobs in a way that satisfies the regulations. The RA does not tell the business how to do that ... the RA just says do your business in a way to meet these regulations, but you figure out HOW to do that.

One of the things that RAs usually want businesses to do is to document processes & procedures that they use so they can show how their work meets the regs. And they have to show that they've trained their employees on these documented processes & procedures. The covered business may have to send in a report periodically to the RA showing that they are following the rules, and in some industries there may be a periodic scheduled inspection by the RA where they review the documentation at a business to verify that they are following the regs.

So ... will your name show up on a list somewhere that the RA can see? It's possible. Is the RA going to do a background check on you just because they saw your name on a list? No, they don't care that much about you ... they just want to see a document that says "Jane Doe, employee, was trained on regulation processes & procedures XYZ on this date". That way they get a warm fuzzy that everybody is following the rules.

And being a two-edged sword, that also gives the RA ammunition to hammer down on the regulated business if there is a problem in the future ... the business can't claim ignorance if they've already told the RA that they trained all staff on regulations, see what I mean?

Typically, rank-n-file staffers dont' get in trouble from the RA for human error or honest mistakes ... but they can get in trouble if they intentionally do something that they knew (due to previous training) was against the rules.

So ... to more directly answer your question ... it is likely that there will be an increase in paperwork for you, but not too much else should change.

Hope this helps :-)