The National Futures Association ("NFA") permanently barred a number of firms based in the British Virgin Islands from membership.The firms were ordered to withdraw from NFA membership and the firms' principal was ordered not to register as an associated person or act as a principal of an NFA Member for four years. An NFA hearing panel found the firms had (i) used misleading promotional material that exaggerated profit potential, downplayed the risk of trading futures and included hypothetical results that were not identified as such, (ii) recommended and/or placed trades that maximized

SIFMA criticized FINRA's proposed Rule 3260 ("Discretionary Accounts and Transactions") (the "Proposal"). The Proposal addresses the treatment of customers' free credit balances and sweep programs, the bulk transfers of customers' accounts and changes of the broker-dealer of record. SIFMA's criticisms of the Proposal included the following: The signature requirement for authorized persons under Proposed Rule 3260(b) raises significant operational, cost, regulatory and other concerns with no investor protection benefit. The Proposal's update requirement will result in a significant

A broad coalition of industry groups urged regulators to exclude client collateral when calculating the total assets of banks, and argued that an unchanged leverage ratio would "reduce access to clearing and undermine one of the main goals of financial reform."

Deputy Comptroller for Compliance Operations and Policy, Grovetta Gardineer asserted that the OCC has taken steps to supervise and enforce better treatment of members of the armed forces under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act of 2003 ("SCRA") and under amended rules implementing the Military Lending Act ("MLA"). In a speech delivered before the Association of Military Banks of America, Ms. Gardineer discussed OCC directives to banks to improve SCRA-compliance policies and procedures. She also discussed the expanded coverage of MLA rules under recent Department of Defense final amendments

The NFA proposed the adoption of an Interpretive Notice to NFA Compliance Rules 2-9, 2-376 and 2-49. The notice would require member firms to "adopt and enforce written procedures to secure customer data and access" to their electronic Information Systems Security Programs ("ISSPs") pursuant to Section 17(j) of the Commodity Exchange Act. The NFA stated that, prior to drafting the notice, it had "reviewed guidance issued by other financial regulators" on cybersecurity, including FINRA's February 2015 Report on Cybersecurity Practices, the SEC's April 2015 Guidance Update and SIFMA's July 2014