Rejoice FINOPs everywhere!! Effective September 1, 2017, we will have one less filing to submit!
Earlier this month, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that they have joined forces to make the filing process of annual audited financial statements a bit easier for us. The two agencies announced a new services agreement which will allow member firms to file their audited financials just once, using FINRA’s Firm Gateway portal, without having to also email a copy to SIPC. Meant to reduce inconsistent or incomplete filing of annual audit reports, it would also eliminate the duplicate reporting being done up until now by over 3,500 member firms. Having to send one less email might not sound like that big of a deal; however, it is a big step in the right direction. Dare we hope that similar arrangements with the remaining state regulators still requiring a copy of audited financials might follow? And while the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) simplified their electronic filing process earlier this year, is there a possibility of combining their filing process with FINRA’s? Just think of all of the other (more than a dozen) financial notifications that a member firm is required to file with “both FINRA and SEC national and applicable regional offices”! If you need a refresher of what financial notifications need to be made, click HERE for a listing.
According to FINRA’s President and CEO, Robert W. Cook, this is “consistent with the goals of FINRA360”, FINRA’s ongoing review of its regulatory programs and operations. FINRA360 was launched earlier this year as a direct result of Mr. Cook’s “listening tour” which aimed at obtaining feedback regarding how FINRA can improve. Besides the new agreement with SIPC, FINRA created a new, centralized enforcement office (consolidating the member regulation and market regulation groups into one department) back in July in response to complaints that the two previous groups were not on the same page.
The complete news release announcing the new annual audited financials reporting process can be found HERE.
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