In separate CFTC, SEC and FINRA actions, a dually registered futures commission merchant and broker-dealer settled charges of AML compliance and suspicious activity report filing failures.
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The SEC extended the time to consider a proposed amendment to the Consolidated Audit Trail National Market System Plan. The amendment would implement a revised funding model for the Consolidated Audit Trail and impose a related fee schedule.
The SEC approved FINRA's proposal to permit broker-dealers to obtain electronically - rather than manually - signatures of personnel exercising discretionary trading authority over customer accounts. FINRA will announce the effective date of the rule change in a forthcoming Regulatory Notice. As previously covered , FINRA acknowledged that while manual signatures were historically required to assist firms in verifying the identity of personnel, the requirement for manual signatures has become obsolete in light of technological advances in the authentication of electronic signatures.
The SEC approved FINRA's proposed rule changes, with some amendments, permitting certain conditions or restrictions to be imposed on broker-dealers that have a "significant history" of misconduct or that hired associated persons with such a history.
A broker-dealer settled SEC and FINRA charges for reporting incomplete and inaccurate securities trading information.