Regulatory Notice 20-32 Summary FINRA has recently observed an increase in fraudulent options trading being facilitated by (1) account takeover schemes (sometimes referred to as account intrusions), through which a bad actor gains unauthorized entry to a customer’s brokerage account; and (2) the use of new account fraud1 by a bad actor who fraudulently establishes a brokerage accou […]

Election Notice – 9/1/20 Summary The purpose of this Notice is to inform small FINRA member firms1 of the upcoming Small Firm Advisory Committee (SFAC) election. Two seats on the SFAC are up for election, one representing the South region and one representing the Midwest region.

Election Notice – 9/1/20 Summary The purpose of the Notice is to notify member firms of the upcoming nomination and election process to fill vacancies on FINRA’s Regional Committees. The Regional Committees play an important part of informing FINRA’s regulatory programs by, among other things, alerting FINRA to industry trends that could present regulatory concerns, and consulting […]

Regulatory Notice 20-31 Summary FINRA is issuing this Regulatory Notice as part of its continuing efforts to provide members with guidance on requirements relating to the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), and FINRA Rule 6800 Series (the “CAT Rules”). In particular, FINRA is reminding members of their supervisory responsibilities under the CAT Rules and FINRA’s Supervision Rule (Rule […]

Regulatory Notice 20-30 Summary Several firms have recently informed FINRA that malicious actors are using registered representatives’ names and other information to establish websites (“imposter websites”) that appear to be the representatives’ personal sites and are also calling and directing potential customers to use these imposter websites.

Election Notice – 8/17/20 Summary The purpose of this Election Notice is to notify members of an upcoming election to fill two large firm seats and one small firm seat on the National Adjudicatory Council (NAC), and to announce the FINRA Nominating & Governance Committee (Nominating Committee) nominees for these vacancies. Eligible individuals not nominated by the Nominating Comm […]

Regulatory Notice 20-29 Summary FINRA requests comment on the practice of internalizing customer trades in the corporate bond market after obtaining auction responses, commonly known as “pennying.” In particular, pennying involves a dealer, after receiving a customer order, initiating a bid or offer wanted auction process on behalf of a customer, reviewing the auction responses, an […]

Regulatory Notice 20-28 Summary FINRA has released an updated Security Futures Risk Disclosure Statement (2020 Statement) to replace the one that was last updated in 2018, and a supplement (2020 Supplement) that reflects the disclosure updates described herein.1 The 2020 Statement incorporates all cumulative changes made to date, which include, among others, conforming changes for […]

Regulatory Notice 20-27 FINRA is warning member firms of a new imposter website www.finnra.org (please notice the extra “n” in the domain name). One portion of the website contains a link to a registration site that is not legitimate (see images, below). In addition, it is possible bad actors could leverage the domain to send fake emails including those with imbedded phishing links […]