Questioning the viability of the Series 65 for accredited status

[Michael Fenton]

Background: I am individual living in Florida who does not work in the financial services industry, but has a background in finance.

There are lots of articles out there that discuss utilizing the Series 65 as a pathway to gaining accredited investor status. What doesn't seem to get many mentions is the SEC guidance that: "...a person seeking accredited investor status by passing the Series 65 exam would also need to be licensed as an investment adviser representative in her state...".

I asked the largest investment verification platform about this as well and the response seems to confirm that: "...the investor must have their license currently registered with a State to be in good standing...". I am left to believe that taking the Series 65 exam using form U10 will be of little to no value since that does not include registering as an IAR with any state.

If this is correct then I would be left with the much more costly and time consuming process of registering with my state and paying yearly fees of $250+ in order to keep my license in good standing. Even if I could manage to register in the cheapest/simplest state it still seems like quite a high hurdle to clear.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Am I missing something here or is the Series 65 an over-hyped way to gain accredited investor status for people working outside of the financial services industry?

[Bryan Hancock]

I can't speak to the legalities either, but functionally if an accreditation service says you have to meet X to gain their accreditation that is likely what you're going to have to do for any sponsors who would use their service.  The sponsors are hiring the accreditation service to go through this process with investor candidates and thus you'll be using whatever their risk tolerance level is to gain the accreditation status you need.  

Jor Law is the founder of VerifyInvestor and is also a securities attorney.  I'd look around for commentary from him or consider emailing him.  He's a nice guy and is generally very responsive.  He's also very non-lawyer in the sense that he thinks like an entrepreneur, which is quite rare in my experience.