All FINRA articles – Page 7
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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SEC, FINRA Dropping Hints on Risk
Compliance officers looking to read some tea leaves about what worries the Securities and Exchange Commission these days might want to skim the 2015 exam priorities that the SEC and FINRA have posted. That guidance applies foremost to financial firms, but “it’s only a matter of time before they require ...
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SEC Announces 2015 Examination Priorities
The SEC has released its examination priorities for 2015. The list includes cyber-security controls and assessing anti-money laundering efforts, with a focus on firms that have not filed suspicious activity reports or have incomplete or late filings. SEC staff will also examine proxy advisory service firms, assessing how they make ...
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Blog
FINRA Fines Citigroup $15 Million for Supervisory Failures
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Citigroup Global Markets $15 million last week for failing to adequately supervise communications between its equity research analysts and its clients and Citigroup sales and trading staff. In settling this matter, Citigroup neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of ...
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SEC Approves Rule Requiring Technology Safeguards
Image: Nov. 19—Despite concerns that it may be too limited in its current form, the SEC unanimously approved Regulation SCI, new rules intended to strengthen the technology infrastructure of securities markets, improve their resilience, and enhance the Commission’s ability to oversee them. The rule includes attestation requirements for chief executive ...