The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced this week plans to consolidate its Examination and Risk Monitoring Programs.
The effort would involve integrating three separate programs into a single unit to create consistency, a single point of accountability for the examination of firms and eliminate duplication.
“Our Examination and Risk Monitoring program is central to our efforts to protect investors and guard the integrity of markets,” FINRA President and CEO Robert W. Cook said. “After careful consideration and extensive feedback from internal and external stakeholders, we are moving toward a program structure that is based on the firms we oversee. By directing our expertise and resources in a more tailored way, we will become more effective at examining for compliance.”
The transformation is being overseen by Executive Vice President of Member Supervision Bari Havlik, who joined FINRA in April.
“Bari brings valuable perspective to her role at the helm of this transformation and, under her leadership, we have begun to create and implement a roadmap that thoughtfully and methodically builds towards the new structure,” Cook said.
FINRA is responsible for regularly examining every firm for compliance with the authority’s rules, as well as those of the SEC and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB). The consolidation would bring three evaluation programs under a single framework designed to better direct and align examination resources to the risk profile and complexity of member firms.