FINRA fined Monex Securities Inc. and ordered the firm to disgorge commissions for permitting unregistered foreign individuals to sell securities on the firm's behalf and related supervisory deficiencies. FINRA found that the Monex Securities CEO executed an agreement on behalf of Monex with its parent company in Mexico that permitted numerous employees to conduct securities business on Monex's behalf. The employees, among other things, collected client information needed to open accounts, made investment recommendations to clients and transmitted orders. FINRA found that the U.S. broker

In the latest installment of Energy Metro Desk, former CFTC Commissioner and current ISDA CEO, Scott O'Malia, discussed his priorities for the financial industry in 2015. Mr. O'Malia said that harmonizing rules in the OTC derivatives market tops his list for 2015. In implementing the principles agreed upon by the Group of 20 in 2009, Mr. O'Malia explained that regulators created rules and regulations that focused on specific jurisdictions with "little thought" as to how the regulations would harmonize with other cross-border jurisdictions. According to Mr. O'Malia, the lack of regulatory

FINRA issued an Information Notice to remind firms of their Annual Audit, Financial and Operational Combined Uniform Single ("FOCUS"), Form Custody, and supplemental FOCUS Report filing obligations. According to the Information Notice, all such filings must be received by FINRA by their required due dates to avoid specified fees as set forth in FINRA's by-laws and to avoid suspension of FINRA membership. All filings submitted to FINRA must be made electronically though FINRA's Firm Gateway. See: Information Notice.

FINRA released the second podcast in a three-part series on topics to consider when planning Firm Element training, as identified in the CE Council's Fall 2014 Firm Element Advisory. The podcast focused on new and updated topics, including: MSRB's new amendments to Professional Qualification Requirements rule; consolidating MSRB fair-pricing obligations into MSRB Rule G-30; CBOE amendments to certain margin rules for volatility index options; and FINRA revisions to Series 23, Series 24 and Series 26 examination programs. See: FINRA Podcast; Transcription of Podcast. Related news: FINRA Podcast

The SEC announced the launch of a pilot program to facilitate investor analysis and comparisons of public company financial statement data. The new program will combine and structure data provided by companies into formats that can be downloaded in bulk from the SEC's website. According to the SEC, the data sets will contain financial statement data from eXtensible Business Reporting Language ("XBRL") exhibits as filed with the SEC. In 2015, the data sets will be expanded to include data in footnotes to the financial statements. The pilot program builds on the SEC's efforts to utilize