On Tuesday, January 5, 2016, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") released its 2016 Regulatory and Examination Priorities Letter. This year’s letter highlights the themes of supervision, risk management controls, and liquidity. Additional areas of focus include member firm’s monitoring of concentrations and recommendations, seniors and vulnerable investors, private placements and Regulation A+ offerings, fixed income securities, market integrity and financial and operational controls relating to exchange-traded funds, and fixed-income prime brokerage. The letter also includes FINRA’s recent insights into firm cultures, conflicts of interest, and ethics as FINRA believes these factors play large roles in successes and breakdowns at member firms. This year, FINRA aims to understand how such factors as a firm’s culture affects compliance and risk management and has a goal of achieving a formalized means of evaluating factors related to the compliance and regulatory cultures of individual FINRA member firms. A copy of the letter may be found here.
Alert
01.07.2016