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Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins said Tuesday that he's asked agency staff to draft a "broader" rule on electronic document delivery.
Atkins made his comments during a question and answer session with Robert Cook, CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, at the self-regulatory organization's annual conference in Washington.
"There are different versions" of e-delivery, Cook said. "Allowing people to deliver by PDF what they can deliver by paper today. That's sort of a modest version. You could imagine revisiting many disclosure rules to allow more fluid types of disclosure that really explore the benefits of mobile apps and the like to provide disclosures in more consumable form."
Cook then asked Atkins: "How do you think about e-delivery and how far do you go? Are there trade offs to moving quickly to get something done or doing something more ambitious that may be good in the long run but could take more time?"
Atkins replied that he's asking agency staff to draft "broader e-delivery modernization rules for proposal, to really go beyond the current opt-in situation. I think the marketplace is ready for it."
The SEC's approach, Atkins continued, "will apply across broker-dealers and investment advisors, funds and so forth, and issuers. That can help save, I think, a lot of cost to the system, make things more flexible and there's always the opt-out possibility as well for those who, for whatever reason, want to have that doorstop of a 10-K [filing] out there."
In March, Atkins said an e-delivery rule is "long overdue. It makes a lot of sense; people don't read this stuff" like mutual fund prospectuses and 10-K filings. "These things wind up in the garbage can."
Atkins added Tuesday: "The possibility of having the tools online to actually make sense of some of these disclosures I think is important. It's high time for modernization."
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