These letters, like the statutory exception, permit bank employees to receive a nominal, one-time fee for the referral of customers to the broker-dealer, and do not attempt to establish a rigid mechanism for determining what constitutes a "nominal" fee in every circumstance. This flexible approach has worked well for both the banking and securities industries and has not, to our knowledge, caused significant problems.
Despite the success of this flexible approach, the interim final rules establish a rigid and complex approach for determining whether a referral fee is "nominal." In addition, the rules impose, or request comment on, other restrictions on referral fees that were not authorized by the Congress.