All FINRA articles – Page 5
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Blog
FINRA fines compliance officer for AML compliance failures
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined Raymond James & Associates and Raymond James Financial Services a total of $17 million for widespread failures related to the firms’ anti-money laundering programs. RJA’s former AML compliance officer was also fined and suspended for three months.
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Blog
CCOs facing greater personal scrutiny from regulators
The Man from FCPA, Tom Fox, examines the recent FINRA disciplinary action against Raymond James CCO Linda Busby, in light of what appears to be broadening personal liability for chief compliance officers when it comes to FCPA enforcement.
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Blog
Insured Retirement Institute partners with Gainfully
The Insured Retirement Institute has announced a new partnership with Gainfully, a first-of-its-kind open marketing platform for the financial services industry. Through the partnership, financial advisors can now leverage the Gainfully platform to share relevant and timely content with their clients using social media in an SEC and FINRA-compliant environment.
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Blog
FINRA issues first cross-market report cards
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has launched new, monthly “cross-market equities supervision report cards,” aimed at helping firms identify and halt potential manipulation, including spoofing and layering activity.
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Market shifts, SEC priorities spark debate of FINRA’s future
Changes may be afoot at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority as Congress and others ponder whether its duties should expand, compress, or just be folded into the Securities and Exchange Commission. Amid the debates one thing is clear: FINRA is doubling down on its enforcement efforts.
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FINRA Deputy Chief Counsel returns to Foley
Dean Jeske, Deputy Regional Chief Counsel in the Enforcement Department of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is returning to the securities enforcement and litigation practice of law firm Foley & Lardner as a partner in the firm's Chicago office.
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Blog
FinCEN Enforcement Director joins Gibson Dunn
Stephanie Brooker, director of the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), has joined law firm Gibson Dunn its Washington, D.C. office as a partner. At Gibson Dunn, Brooker will focus on financial services related criminal and regulatory enforcement, compliance, and litigation.
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FINRA scrutinizes digital investment advice, ‘robo-advisers'
Financial services firms’ offerings of digital investment advice—also known as ‘robo-advisers’—require sound governance and supervision, including effectively overseeing the suitability of recommendations, conflicts of interest, customer risk profiles, and portfolio rebalancing. That’s the warning in a new report released by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
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Putting FINRA’s priorities into practice
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s full court press on addressing emerging and existing risks in the securities industry will continue to intensify in 2016, reinforced by a steady surge in restitution, disciplinary actions, and bars and suspensions over the last five years. What are FINRA’s top regulatory and examination priorities, ...
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FINRA: establishing and implementing cultural values
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority issued new guidance on what firms will be expected to discuss regarding their firm’s cultural values. FINRA plans to meet with business, compliance, legal, and risk executives to discuss how to communicate and reinforce values. “We are particularly interested in how your firm measures compliance ...
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Group slams FINRA over arbitration claims
Nearly one out of three investor awards in arbitration cases overseen by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority go unpaid claims a new report by the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association. The group—a not-for-profit association of lawyers representing claimants in securities and commodities arbitration proceedings and litigation—claims that “nearly $1 of ...
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Q&A with Wolters Kluwer’s Barbara Boehler: What is a “culture of compliance,” anyway?
Image: A term of the moment in regulatory circles is “culture of compliance,” a desire for firms to move beyond check-the-box rules and compliance demands by making good behavior part of their corporate zeitgeist. We spoke to Barbara Boehler, a regulatory compliance expert at Wolters Kluwer, about how to define ...
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Blog
FINRA Exams Will Focus on Culture of Compliance
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is joining the chorus of regulators urging a “culture of compliance” at the financial firms it supervises. As outlined in its 2016 Regulatory and Examination Priorities Letter, it will assess whether control functions are valued within the organization, whether policy or control breaches are tolerated, ...
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Blog
FINRA Chairman to Retire in 2016
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States, recently announced that Chairman and CEO Richard Ketchum has announced his plan to retire in the second half of 2016. The Board of Governors will conduct a search for his ...
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Blog
FINRA Pitches Safe Harbor For Firms Flagging Investor Exploitation
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Board of Governors has advanced proposed rulemaking that would allow the firms it oversees to place a temporary hold on a disbursement of funds or securities if it has a reasonable belief that financial exploitation is occurring. The rule would provide firms with a safe ...
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Blog
FINRA Fines Goldman Sachs $1.8M for Trade Reporting Failures
Goldman Sachs Group has agreed to pay $1.8 million to resolve allegations by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that one of its units failed to accurately submit required trade reports, filed inaccurate trading data for more than eight years, and did not have adequate systems and controls in place ...
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Blog
Investor Advocates Want SEC to Create National Broker Database
A coalition of investor advocacy groups, including Public Citizen, the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, and the PIABA Foundation, is calling upon the SEC to supplement the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck system for vetting financial professionals with a national disciplinary database and to make improvements to the existing ...
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Article
Mending Social Media Compliance Gaps
Two recent studies hold both good and bad news on the state of social media compliance today: Compliance officers no longer approach corporate use of social media with the trepidation they once did, but those channels leave companies increasingly vulnerable to regulatory violations. According to these studies, the financial services ...
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Blog
SEC Approves Tick-Size Pilot Program
The SEC has approved a proposal by the national securities exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for a two-year pilot program that will widen the minimum quoting and trading increments, known as tick sizes, for stocks of some smaller companies. The program—to begin May 6, 2016—will include stocks of ...
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Blog
SEC May Create One-Stop Database for Investors
The SEC may consider the creation of a new public database that compiles the scattered array of information on financial professionals and securities laws violations. A proposal from its Investor Advisory Committee would link to existing databases run by regulators and self-regulatory organizations. More inside.