Online Access to FCM Financial Information Now Available (with Lofchie Comment)

The National Futures Association ("NFA") announced that it is launching a new service with the goal of assisting futures customers in their due diligence review of FCMs. As of November 7, individuals can view certain financial information of any FCM via each FCM's Background Affiliation Status Information Center ("BASIC") system page on the NFA's website.

The financial information included on FCM's BASIC page will include three reports:

• FCM Capital Report;
• FCM Customer Segregated Funds Report; and
• FCM Customer Secured Amount Funds Report.

Lofchie Comment: This is obviously one of the follow-ups to the failures of MF Global and Peregrine; the CFTC is trying to give investors comfort that FCMs are properly segregating assets. One of the items that will be included in the report which I thought interesting is the amount of cash that an FCM keeps with any affiliated bank. I wonder if this will discourage FCMs from keeping cash with their affiliates. The SEC has also recently re-proposed a rule change that would prohibit broker-dealers from keeping customer cash with an affiliated bank.

Click here to view press release in full (links externally to NFA website).