Close Close
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
ThinkAdvisor

Regulation and Compliance > Federal Regulation > FINRA

FINRA to Expand BrokerCheck; Rep Info to Stay Online

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) says it has won approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a major expansion of its BrokerCheck service.

The service makes records of final regulatory actions against brokers permanently available to the public, regardless of whether they continue to be employed in the securities industry. Under current rules, a broker’s record generally becomes unavailable to the public two years after he or she leaves the securities industry and is therefore no longer under FINRA’s jurisdiction.

Disclosure records for former brokers will be available on BrokerCheck beginning November 30, FINRA says.

“This is an important step for investors and for investor protection,” explains FINRA Chairman and CEO Richard Ketchum. “Individuals previously barred by FINRA and other regulators have surfaced in a number of recent frauds in other parts of the financial industry that cost unsuspecting investors millions of dollars. It has never been more critical for investors to research the backgrounds of the financial professionals they deal with than it is today.”

“It is possible that a (former broker) could become a financial planner or work in another related field where his securities record would help members of the public decide if they should accept his financial advice or rely on his advice or expertise,” says the SEC. It also states that providing information on final regulatory actions against former brokers “will help members of the public to protect themselves from unscrupulous people and thus….should help prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, and protect investors and the public interest.”

BrokerCheck is a free online service through which investors can instantly see the employment, qualifications and disciplinary history of more than 650,000 brokers under FINRA’s jurisdiction.

FINRA estimates there are more than 15,000 individuals who have left the securities industry after being the subject of a final regulatory action and whose disciplinary history is not currently available on BrokerCheck.

Records for those individuals will become available on November 30 and will include any final sanction (such as bars, suspensions and fines) imposed by the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, any federal banking agency, the National Credit Union Administration, any other federal regulatory agency, any state regulatory agency, any foreign financial regulatory authority or any self-regulatory organization (such as FINRA).

Those individuals’ records generally will also disclose administrative information such as employment and registration history, the individual’s most recently submitted comments and the dates and names of qualification examinations passed by the individual.

In many cases, final regulatory actions against an individual can be found in various places on the Internet, including FINRA’s website.

In 2008, individuals used BrokerCheck to conduct 11.6 million reviews of broker or firm records.


NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.