SEC Announces Its 2014 Examination Priorities

The SEC has announced its examination priorities for 2014, which cover a wide range of issues at financial institutions, including investment advisers and investment companies, broker-dealers, clearing agencies, exchanges and other self-regulatory organizations, hedge funds, private equity funds, and transfer agents. The 2014 priorities include:

• wrap fee programs, quantitative trading models, and payments by advisers and funds to entities that distribute mutual funds;
• issues related to the fixed-income market and trading issues, including compliance with the new market access rule;
• risk-based examinations of securities exchanges and FINRA, perceived control weakness at exchanges, and pre-launch reviews of new exchange applicants;
• the timely turnaround of items and transfers, accurate recordkeeping and the safeguarding of assets; and
• pre-launch reviews of new clearing agency applicants.

See: SEC Examination Priorities for 2014; Press Release.See also: FINRA Releases 2014 Regulatory and Examination Priorities (with Lofchie Comment) (January 2, 2014).