NEW YORK -The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is prepared to work with the Labor Department to establish guardrails for investors if they gain greater access to private markets in retirement plans, the agency's chief said in a CNBC interview on Monday.

"We can work with the Department of Labor to help to have good guardrails" for people to offer greater access to private markets for individual investors, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said when asked about reports that President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order to make private-firm investments more accessible in retirement plans. 

Private firms do not have the same level of required disclosures as public companies and are prone to valuation issues, so the SEC has historically restricted their access to mainstream investors. 

"We need to make it so that individual investors are relying on fiduciaries to help them put these sorts of products, if they wish, into their long-term savings and retirement plans," Atkins said.