Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
By 
May 15, 2019 at 03:46 PM
There’s “still a lot more to come” in the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s top-to-bottom review via its FINRA360 initiative, Robert Cook, the broker-dealer self-regulator’s CEO, said Wednesday.
“It’s doing great; we’ve got a lot of accomplishments under our belt at this point,” Cook said during a question and answer session at FINRA’s annual conference in Washington. He noted the recent release of the one-year progress report, which includes 50 pages of updates.
“We’ve managed to get a lot done through engagement with our members,” Cook said, including initiatives involving transparency, FINRA operations, its organizational structure as well as its budget.
Continuing its retrospective review of rules is also on FINRA’s to-do list as well as new innovations, like the launch of FINRA’s new fintech office.
Rules that could get another look include those that involve protecting seniors, Cook said. For instance, one question that has come up recently, Cook said, “is whether brokers or reps should be able to be the beneficiaries of their clients. That’s an interesting question.”
“There’s a lot more to come,” Cook said. “What I see as the fuel that drives good changes like this is an engagement with our stakeholders … Where I see FINRA360 going is transitioning to embedding this idea of continuous improvement into our operations. We have a cycle of listening, reflecting and then acting.”
As to the Consolidated Audit Trail: “CAT is coming,” Cook warned. For the broker-dealer industry, “the first wave of testing” will be coming later this year, he said. FINRA is now the CAT processor. Cook advised attendees to check out CAT’s progress at catnmsplan.com to see the “specs that firms should be working on.”
