[Photo: Robert Cook President, CEO of FINRA]

by Howard Haykin

Give FINRA and Robert Cook, its new President and CEO, an “A for Effort.” Speaking at last Wednesday’s FINRA’s Annual Conference, Mr. Cook talked about the FINRA Report Center, which supports member firms’ compliance activities. Presently, it provides online access to 43 different reports on a broad scope of compliance data. Last year, these reports were accessed more than 300,000 times by 15,000 users at FINRA member firms. [see links below.]

AND THEY WORK!   For example, take the Cross-Market Surveillance Report Card. Since it's launch in 2016, FINRA has seen a 68% decline in layering exceptions. And so, FINRA plans to include 2 more types of cross-market surveillance alerts by the end of the year.

But that’s not all. Later this year, FINRA will debut an Exam Finding Report, which will summarize key examination findings from across FINRA’s programs. This information should assist compliance officers and professionals in strengthening firms’ 

TIME TO VISIT THE FINRA REPORT CENTER.    The FINRA Report Center provides firms with secure access to data and reports that help firms detect potential compliance problems early. FINRA Report Center provides report cards that cover a variety of topics and rulesets. Here are the various linked reports offered on that page

• CBOE / C2 report cards.    These report cards support firms' compliance with Chicago Board Options Exchange and C2 Options Exchange rules.
• Corporate Financing report cards.    This report displays statistics about late filings submitted to Corporate Financing through the Public Offering System. 
• Cross-Market Supervision report cards.    The Cross-Market Equities Supervision Manipulation Report provides firms feedback on exceptions that were generated based on firms' order entries and trading activities in a given surveillance period. The report covers layering and cross-market quote spoofing. 
• Disclosure report cards.    Monitor a firm's performance in reporting disclosure and non-disclosure events and Web CRD late filing fee information.
• Equity report cards.    Track your compliance with key equity trading rules related to OATS, Best Execution, Market Order Timeliness, Trade Reporting and Reg NMS trade throughs.
• MSRB report cards.    These reports display statistics related to firms' compliance with Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board rules and other requirements related to municipal securities and the MSRB's Electronic Municipal Market Access website. 
• Online Learning report cards.   The CE Regulatory Element Report provides information about your firm's Continuing Education performance as well as industry performance for comparison.
• Risk Monitoring report cards.    These reports display summaries and statistics related to various risk factors, including canceled trades, sales practice and customer complaints, and more.
• Tick Size Pilot Market Maker Compliance Report Card.    This daily report card allows Tick Size market-making firms to review their required submissions to FINRA's Market Maker Transaction Reporting System for the Tick Size Pilot Program, providing insight into how they have addressed any potential reporting issues.
• TRACE report cards.    These monthly reports cover trades of Securitized Products, Agency Bonds, and Corporate Debt that member firms reported to TRACE.