The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that its Board of Governors approved proposed changes to FINRA’s Communications With the Public Rules, as well as amendments to the Trading Activity Fee for firms with no customers that are engaged solely in proprietary trading activity for their own accounts.
The changes to the Communications With the Public Rules follow a retrospective rule review that was launched in April 2014, which was designed to assess their effectiveness and efficiency.
The proposed rule changes to the Communications With the Public Rule set are the first changes made to FINRA rules under the retrospective rule review program. FINRA will issue a Regulatory Notice in the coming months seeking comment on proposed changes to Rules 2210, 2213 and 2214.
“The proposed changes to FINRA’s Communications With the Public Rules will help ensure that these rules are meeting their intended investor-protection objectives by reasonably efficient means.” said FINRA Chairman and CEO Richard Ketchum.
“FINRA also announced that it is proposing to tailor its Trading Activity Fee (TAF) to the business activities of proprietary trading firms with no customers” concluded Mr. Ketchum.
FINRA will issue Regulatory Notices soliciting public comment on a series of proposals, including:
Trading Activity Fee
The Board authorized FINRA to publish a Regulatory Notice requesting comment on proposed amendments to the TAF for firms with no customers and are engaged solely in proprietary trading activity for their own accounts.
The proposed amendments would exclude from the TAF those transactions executed on an exchange of which the firm is a member (including non-market-maker trades) provided the firm does not have customers and trades only for its own account. These proposed changes follow the SEC’s recent proposal to eliminate the registration exemption for proprietary trading firms that are members of exchanges but not FINRA.
Communications With the Public
The Board authorized FINRA to publish a Regulatory Notice requesting comment on proposed amendments that would eliminate certain filing requirements that present a low level of risk to investors, such as the filing requirements for generic investment company material and investment company shareholder reports, and make other changes to better align the requirements to the relative risks presented by specific types of sales material.
For the official announcement from FINRA, click here.