FINRA’s Top Priorities for 2022

FINRA’s Top Priorities for 2022

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 Eliminates the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) Rules

FINRA Eliminates the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) Rules

Effective September 1, 2021, FINRA is amending its rulebook to eliminate the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) rules in the FINRA Rule 7400 Series and FINRA Rule 4554 (Alternative Trading Systems — Recording Reporting Requirements and of Order and Execution Information for NMS Stocks) (collectively referred to as the “OATS Rules”). FINRA has determined that the accuracy and reliability of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) meet the standards approved by the SEC and has determined to retire OATS as of September 1, 2021.

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FINRA’s Top Priorities for 2021

FINRA’s Top Priorities for 2021

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:

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Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) Approved

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a National Market System (NMS) plan to create a comprehensive database of all trading activity in the U.S. equity and options markets. This database is known as the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT).

Proposed by FINRA and the national security exchanges to comply with new regulations related to broker-dealer compliance, specifically SEC Rule 613, the NMS plan details the methods by which self-regulatory organizations (SROs) and broker-dealers will record and report market information. The supplied data will provide the complete lifecycle of all orders and Read More…