FINRA Board Approves 2018 Budget and Various Rulemaking Proposals
At the final 2017 FINRA Board of Governors meeting, the Board approved FINRA's 2018 operating budget and updated its Financial Guiding Principles. In a first for the organization, both documents will be published.
The budget will not include any fee rate increases for member firms.
The Financial Guiding Principles articulate the considerations that FINRA uses for financial planning and the development of the annual budget. The publication of the annual budget and the Guiding Principles is an effort to provide greater transparency about how FINRA manages its financial resources.
The Board also approved various rulemaking actions, including authorizing FINRA staff to:
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file a proposed rule change to require alternative trading systems to identify certain subscribers when reporting Treasury securities transactions to TRACE;
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publish a Regulatory Notice seeking comment on amendments to FINRA Rule 5130 ("Restrictions on the Purchase and Sale of Initial Equity Public Offerings") and 5131 ("New Issue Allocations and Distributions") to help facilitate capital formation;
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publish a Regulatory Notice seeking comment on a proposal to streamline rules on outside business activities and private securities transactions;
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publish a Regulatory Notice seeking comment on proposed amendments to FINRA Rule 2111 ("Suitability") to address the "churning" (i.e., excessive trading) of customer accounts;
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file a proposed rule change to establish a $60 fee for the Securities Industry Essentials examination and revise other examination fees;
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publish proposed amendments to FINRA Rules 2210 ("Communications with the Public") and 2241 ("Research Analysts and Research Reports") to align them with the Fair Access to Investment Research Act of 2017, which removes certain restrictions on the publication of research reports on SEC-registered investment companies and exchange-traded funds; and
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implement an initiative to modernize technology that supports the FINRA registration system.