Best Execution Archives - MasterCompliance

FINRA’s Top Priorities for 2022

Posted on March 11, 2022 by admin

Early in the year, FINRA released their 2022 Report on FINRA’s Examination and Risk Monitoring Program, which is designed to inform member firms’ compliance programs by providing annual insights from FINRA’s ongoing regulatory operations. In this report detailing FINRA’s top priorities for 2022, FINRA addresses 21 regulatory areas which are grouped into 4 categories: (1) Firm Operations, (2) Communications and Sales, (3) Market Integrity, and (4) Financial Management. From these 21 regulatory areas, FINRA highlights 7 that they feel are the most important and affect a large portion of member firms, which are as follows: Reg BI and Form CRS Read more about FINRA’s Top Priorities for 2022[…]

FINRA’s Top Priorities for 2021

Posted on February 24, 2021February 24, 2021 by admin

Early in the year, FINRA released their 2021 Report on FINRA’s Examination and Risk Monitoring Program, which is designed to inform member firms’ compliance programs by providing annual insights from FINRA’s ongoing regulatory operations.

In this report detailing FINRA’s top priorities for 2021, FINRA addresses 18 regulatory areas which are grouped into 4 categories: (1) Firm Operations, (2) Communications and Sales, (3) Market Integrity, and (4) Financial Management. From these 18 regulatory areas, FINRA highlights 6 that they feel are the most important and affect a large portion of member firms, which are as follows:

Best Execution Violation Takeaways

Posted on September 29, 2020 by SCM Communications

Disciplinary actions are often the best way to answer questions such as “how did this happen” or “what can we do differently”. Recently, a member firm named Robinhood Financial LLC was fined $1.25 million for best execution violations. Their shortcomings can provide valuable takeaways to assist other firms in building and solidifying their compliance program.

Highlights from FINRA Small Firm Conference Call: Part 2

Posted on April 29, 2020April 29, 2020 by SCM Communications

Earlier this month, FINRA hosted a Small Firm Conference Call to discuss updates and implications of COVID-19 (Coronavirus). If you were not able to listen to the call live, a replay recording is available on demand. This recording provides and discusses many highlights noted in the FAQs Related to Coronavirus Pandemic.

Best Execution: Compliance for Investment Advisers

Posted on October 11, 2019 by SCM Communications

Under the Investment Advisors Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”), Investment Advisers assume a fiduciary responsibility requiring them to seek and obtain the “best execution” for client transactions when trading in client accounts. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has outlined this responsibility as “an adviser must execute securities transactions for clients in such a manner that the client’s total costs or proceeds in each transaction are the most favorable under the circumstances.” Also, the SEC has indicated Investment Advisers need to periodically “evaluate the execution quality of the broker-dealer executing their clients’ transactions.”

MSRB Rule G-18: Best Execution

Posted on June 17, 2016November 2, 2018 by SCM Communications

MSRB Rule G-18, the new best-execution rule for municipal securities, became effective March 21, 2016. At this point, most broker-dealers registered with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (“MSRB”) have implemented written policies and procedures for seeking best execution on customer orders in municipal securities. Now, if you are a compliance officer or municipal securities principal at one of these broker-dealers, you may still be pondering precisely how your firm is going to perform and document the required periodic reviews of its best-execution policies and procedures. Many introducing broker-dealers hope to avail themselves of a provision in Rule G-18 that seemingly permits them to rely on the best-execution reviews of their clearing firms. In this blog post, we identify the conditions for obtaining this relief and discuss some of the challenges of relying on another broker-dealer’s best-execution reviews.