The recommendation raises standards for broker-dealers. Brokers are currently required to meet a suitability standard, a requirement that is less stringent than the mandate for registered investment advisors, who must place clients’ financial interests before their own.

The study, due last Friday and submitted late that night, was mandated under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Under Dodd-Frank Congress gave the SEC the authority to establish a fiduciary standard for brokers and modify the fiduciary standard for investment advisors.

The standard should be "no less stringent than currently applied to investment advisors” under the Advisors Act, the SEC said.

The report caused dissention among the SEC’s ranks. Commissioners Kathleen Casey and Troy Paredes opposed the study’s release as drafted.

“The study recommends the adoption of a new uniform fiduciary duty standard and harmonization of two disparate regulatory regimes. But it does so without adequate articulation or substantiation of the problems that would purportedly be addressed via that regulation,” the two said in a separate joint statement.

The SEC still has to decide how to apply the recommendations, which is a major step in adding uniformity in regulating the wealth management industry. Investment advisors have long pushed for brokers to adhere to the same fiduciary standard.