The NASD and NYSE have signed a letter of intent to form a new self-regulatory organization (SRO) that combines the regulatory arms of the NASD and NYSE, streamlining regulation into one entity with a unified set of rules for U.S. broker/dealers.
As reported earlier, The SEC, NASD and NYSE have been working in concert to create a single SRO, and take the two sets of broker/dealer regulatory rules and reduce them to a single set of regulations, reducing conflicts that have bedeviled the brokerage industry, and saving costs for broker/dealers. This next step lays out the groundwork for the new, to-be-named-later SRO.
Mary L. Schapiro, chairman and CEO of NASD, will be the CEO of the new SRO, which will have “regulatory oversight of securities firms, arbitration,” as well as “professional training, testing and licensing of registered representatives, and of industry utilities like NASD’s Alternative Display Facility, OTC Bulletin Board, and Trade Reporting Facility,” according to a joint announcement from NASD and NYSE.”