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FINRA's Small Firm Cybersecurity Checklist

Digital Assets - Joint Staff Statement on Broker-Dealer Custody of Digital Asset Securities Published

2019 Annual Risk Monitoring and Examination Priorities Letter

Unscripted: FINRA's Official Podcast

FINRA Releases Report on the Rise of RegTech

FINRA Announces Initiative to Transform CRD, Other Registration Systems

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A Few Minutes With FINRA

Summary - FINRA provides a library of brief video segments in which senior FINRA staff discuss timely regulatory topics and respond to comments from firms on specific areas of concern.

These videos are available on the FINRA website. The topics are diverse and offer different perspectives on topics regarding accounting regulations.

For more information, please click here.

FINRA's Small Firm Cybersecurity Checklist

Summary - FINRA provides a 'Small Firm Cybersecurity Checklist' in their effort toward protecting the data of investors. FINRA's cybersecurity program supports the following according to its website:

Identify and assess cybersecurity threats;
Protect assets from cyber intrusions;
Detect when their systems and assets have been compromised;
Plan for the response when a compromise occurs; and
Implement a plan to recover lost, stolen or unavailable assets.

The checklist, which is primarily derived from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework and FINRA’s Report on Cybersecurity Practices, is available online.

Click here for more information.

FINRA Compliance Calendar

Summary - FINRA offers a Compliance Calendar complete with upcoming deadlines and events. Recent enhancements to the calendar, per the FINRA website, include:

Overdue Filings: displays all overdue filings for your firm.
Export: allows you to export a month of regulatory deadlines and events into excel format.
Email: allows you to send a regulatory deadline/event via email.
Calendar: allows you to add a regulatory deadline/event to your calendar.

For more information, please click here.

Digital Assets - Joint Staff Statement on Broker-Dealer Custody of Digital Asset Securities Published

Summary - Market participants have raised questions concerning the application of the federal securities laws and the rules of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) to the potential intermediation of digital asset securities and transactions. The staffs of the Division of Trading and Markets and FINRA have issued a joint statement that articulates various considerations relevant to many of these questions, particularly under the SEC’s Customer Protection Rule applicable to SEC registered broker-dealers.

For more information, please click here.

2019 Annual Risk Monitoring and Examination Priorities Letter

Summary - Each year, FINRA publishes its Annual Risk Monitoring and Examination Priorities Letter to highlight issues of importance to FINRA’s regulatory programs. This letter describes topics that member firms should consider as they identify opportunities to improve their compliance, supervisory and risk management programs. This year's letter focuses primarily on topics that will be materially new areas of emphasis for FINRA's risk monitoring and examination programs in the coming year.

For more information and to view the letter, please click here.

Source: FINRA

Unscripted: FINRA's Official Podcast

FINRA offers a resource known as Unscripted, a podcast that discusses regulatory topics. Per the FINRA website, "Unscripted is the voice of the nation’s largest non-government securities regulator. We bring together FINRA leaders to discuss existing and emerging regulatory topics that impact the broker-dealer industry. We share best practices for compliance officers, insights into the operations of a 3,500 person self-regulated organization and educational tools and information for investors. Every investor in America relies on one thing: fair financial markets. That is what FINRA works every day to ensure."

For more information, click here.

Source: FINRA

FINRA Releases Report on the Rise of RegTech

FINRA released a white paper outlining recent regulatory technology (RegTech) developments within the securities industry and potential opportunities and implications these technologies may have for broker-dealers.

The report follows an in-depth review conducted by FINRA on the emergence of RegTech tools within the securities industry and summarizes the study’s key findings. Notably, FINRA highlights five areas where industry participants have most prominently leveraged RegTech innovations: surveillance and monitoring, customer identification and antimoney laundering compliance, regulatory intelligence, reporting and risk management and investor risk assessment.

For more information, click here.

Source: FINRA

FINRA Announces Initiative to Transform CRD, Other Registration Systems

FINRA announced in June 2018 details of a multi-phased effort to overhaul its registration and disclosure programs, including the Central Registration Depository (CRD). The new technology aims to enhance efficiencies and reduce compliance costs for firms. For more information on the initiative, please click here.

Source: FINRA